


Looking closer

by missukeman



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: AU, Allen is sad and must be protected, Angst, DGM, Everybody is sad okay, Lavi is sad, M/M, Mild Violence in later chapters, Minor Kanda/Allen, Minor Kanda/Lenalee, Romance, Sexual Content, Tyki is dangerous and hot, laven, modern day AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 08:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11528217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missukeman/pseuds/missukeman
Summary: Allen Walker tranfers into Black University and meets an interesting guy named Lavi who develops a slight interest in him. But Allen has more than one reason not to get too close with people and a few shadowy secrets to hide. And Lavi absolutely loves to find out secrets.





	1. The First impression

Allen Walker wanted to be a perfectly normal guy. He wanted to get as less attention as he possibly could. In fact, he would have absolutely loved being completely invisible. Sadly, he wasn´t. He was rather outstanding with his white as snow hair and with that weird red mark on his face. He was also aware of his rather good looks which, in thiscase, didn't' help much either. Allen Walker knew very well that he wasn't invisible but man, he was trying. He had tried being silent, modest and unnoticed for a while now and sometimes it had even worked really well. And he hoped it'd keep helping him be as invisible as possible, because if it didn't he didn't know what would.

And still, his plan with being invisible and innocent normal guy was already going down with a blistering speed... and only because he was hopelessly late from school on his first day!

_Fuck me_ , Allen cursed in his head as he rushed in of the Black University's doors.  _Why did I have to get that one extra minute of sleep?_  Suddenly his little nap had turned into a half an hour and before he knew it he was running down the street heading to his new school where his guardian Cross Marian switched him into. Allen had already known the building was  _huge_  (or so he had been told), but he wasn´t expecting it to be this huge. It was like a big white hospital with every hallway and corner looking exactly the same. The young male was looking around the place desperately trying to see someone who could help him.

Allen felt a slight panic slowly poking the back of his head. Why it was always him who ended up to these kind of situations? Surely that bastard master of his would have known that the white haired teen would get lost in there. Allen's sense of directions wasn't exactly the greatest and the fact that he had never actually visited the Black University didn't help much either.

"Fuck my life." he cursed out loud as he ran up the stairs and took a turn on the corner, just to bump right into a person walking right towards him. In the twinkling of an eye he found himself lying on the floor on his back and that other person right on top of him.

"Oww crap." a little whine escaped his lips, "I'm so sorry, I didn't look where I was going and I was in a hurry, so-"

Allen lifted his head up to apologize to the person he did so rudely run into, and suddenly he felt his heart skip a beat as his silver eyes met really pretty green eyes of a really attractive guy who had a grin on his lips. He had bright red hair and a patch over his other eye. Allen gasped, partly because the boy was so close and partly because the guy just was way too good looking for his own good.

"Whoa man, I know I'm pretty attractive but are you really that eager to throw yourself into my arms?" the guy laughed out and stood up. It took Allen a minute to realize he was still staring at the other.

"Oh! I-I-I dd not do that on purpose. I'm so sorry!" Allen assured quickly and felt a slight blush rising on his cheeks. Oh gosh, this is so embarrassing. "I really just ran into you by accident, I didn't mean to-"

"Psh, yeah right. That's what they always say. I'm Lavi by the way." the guy laughed and held out his hand to help white haired teen back to his feet. Allen hesitated a moment before he reached out Lavis hand. "Allen Walker."

"Sooooo.." Lavi started very curiously, "May I ask what you're doing here running around like a scared little chicken?"

Allen gave Lavi a very serious look. "I didn't run like a scared chicken!", he defended himself. "Well, I'm kinda like late from my class...," he admitted feeling a little ashamed, "And I was looking for someone who could tell me where I should be.." Lavi's face brightened at the moment he heard Allen`s words.

"Is that sooooo?" He asked in a little too friendly sounding voice. "Say Allen, was it? How would you like to make a deal with me?"

Younger teen raised his eyebrow and stared at Lavi suspiciously. "It depends... what kind of deal we're talking about?" He could only wonder what was going trough the other's head. Lavi was a bit too friendly and pushy for Allen's taste and they had only met like two minutes ago for crying out , Allen admitted taking a quick look at Lavi, he is rather good looking.

Lavi raised his hand apologizingly. "Nothing perverted stuff if that's what you're thinking about. No no no I am not that kind of guy. Or, wait, I think I might be. Well yeah if you want to look it that way I guess I am that kind of guy. Would you like me to be that kind of guy? I think chicks secretly like it too."

"If you haven't noticed," Allen stated very coldly, "I am not a girl." Geez, what is wrong with that (tall and good looking) redhead? Allen decided that Lavi might be completely off his head.

"Aww man," said redhead grinned, "I did realize you're a dude, I'm not blind ya know? Anyway, you want to know where you should be, right?" Allen nodded. "Well,then I can show you!"

Allen felt his day getting so much better at instant. "You..you could, really? Awesome!" So Lavi wasn't so bad after all, huh? Just when Allen had thought that Lavi pointed his finger up.

"Yup, but with only one tiny little condition; you're coming with me to headmaster and you cangive me a proper reason to be late since I ' _was just showing you around_ '. Sounds good doesn't it?"

Lavi looked at Allen waiting for an answer, which he knew, was going to be 'yes'. Allen sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I guess I don't really have a choice so...yes."

"Aaaaawesome."

***

Komui Lee, the headmaster of school, gave Lavi a really questioning look. "So..you're telling me you didn't go to your class only because you were showing this young man around?" He said laying his eyes on Allen for a moment as he spoke.

"Yup, that's how it went!" Lavi stated cheerfully, Allen nodding next to him.

"Okay, fine. I'll tell your teacher how it is. Now, I suppose you are Allen Walker, right?" Komui asked friendly.

"Yes I am, sir" Allen answered "I'm late from my class because..." _I overslept_  "...I met Lavi and asked him to show me around and we kind of lost the track of time there. I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry Mr. Walker" The Chinese man said and gave him a piece of paper, "It's only Lavi's fault because he was 'showing you around' longer than he should've been. Now go to your classes."

Allen accepted the paper with a small nod and stuffed it into his pocket. "Thank you, we'll go."

As soon as soon they stepped out of the room and closed the door Lavi turned right into Allen. "What was that piece of paper he gave to you?"

"Hmh? Oh this. It's propably the special permission for me to have a single room, since this place only has rooms for two people." Allen stated calmly. "Can you take me to my class now?"

It was like Lavi had no intention to show him his classroom. "Why are you getting special permission to have a own room?", he asked and suddenly made a disgusted face, "Don't tell me you have some kind of horrible contagious illness and you can't be in contact with other people? EWW I TOUCHED YOUR HAND DUDE!"

"IT'S NOTHING LIKE THAT YOU MORON!" Allen shouted, "I just happen to have reasons to have a single room, okay? Which, by the way, is not your business. Now show me my class, please."

"Aww, Allen, you're so mean" Lavi teased. "But, I ques I'll have to give you a break. I can't possibly always get the information I want since we don't know each other very well yet."

Allen looked relieved.

"And digging up a thing like this is fun too," redhead continued gladly.

Allen let out sigh. "Lavi, please. I beg you. Would you just  _pleeaaase_  take my to my class now?"

***

Allen managed to go trough his day just fine. The teacher was very understanding towards him being late and treated him nicely. He, of course, drew someattention to himself, but it had been expected since he was 'the new kid' and all. At the end of the day, he was pretty happy how it went. Allen headed straight to find his room, but before he got too far he felt a hand tapping his shoulder gently.

Allen turned around and faced Lenalee Lee, a cute little Chinese girl who shared the classes with him. "Oh, hi."Allen smiled.

"Hi Allen! I'm Lenalee, remember?"Lenalee greeted brightly. "How was your first day?"

"Uh, it was alright. I met pretty interesting guy at the morning"Allen told "I think he said his name was Lavi." Allen felt confused when Lenalee let out a giggle.

"Haha, so you met Lavi huh? Well, he is an interesting guy for sure."

"Ah... so you know him? Are you two friends?"the white haired boy inquired.

Lenalee nodded smiling and patted Allens back gently."Yes, I would say so. He is alright, but be careful with him. Lavi's always up to something stupid. Just let me know if he tries anything funny, ok?"

_Anything...funny?_ What did Lenalee mean by that Allen wasn't sure. "Uh, ok, I will", he promised.

Just like Lavi would have known people were talking about him, he suddenly popped behind the corner and gave Lenalee a big hug. "Lenaleeeee! You're as pretty as ever! Say, I heard that this new movie is coming out today, wanna go watch it?"

Lenalee shook her head and pushed Lavi back laughing. "Aww, I'm sorry Lavi, it would be fun. But I have something to do."

"Aaaaw, don't go on breaking my heart like that lady" Lavi cried and took sad expresson looking the girl with his one green puppy eye. "What could be more important than hang out with good old Lavi? What is it you have gotta do? Does it have something to do with that guy?" he asked pointing his finger at Allen.

Allen snorted and looked away feeling offended.  _'That guy?'_ They had just met and now this stupid redhead couln't even remember his name.

"Hey wait" Lavi suddenly gasped "You are that cute guy from this morning! Splendid!"

Allen turned bright red. Did Lavi just say he thought Allen was cute?

"Would  _you_  come with me see that movie then?"Lavi asked grapping Allen's hand and was clearly excited about it. Allen recoilded away form other boy and stuttered that he had something important to do and with that he just ran away awkwardly.

"Geez, what's with him?"Lavi wondered aloud. "It's like he's not interested about hanging out with me, can you believe that?"

***

Allen closed his door when he finally got to his room and threw his bag to the floor carelessly. He noticed that someone had already brought his stuff there. It was propably Cross. Allen bet the man did want him out of his house as fast as possible. Clever thing to do, now that Allen's stuff was already in his room here, he had no real reason to go back living with his master. He doubted a bit though that his master would really go trough all trouble of delivering his stuff here by himself. He propably had just hired someone to bring them and Allen would be the one who received the bill later.

He sighed, sat down on his bed and leaned his head agains the wall. Allen watched blankly out of the window on the opposite wall. This day had been fine, but he couln't shake off the feeling that something was wrong. Maybe it was all the new people he had met, or maybe... maybe it was just Lavi. The boy still felt his cheeks heaten up when he thought that Lavi had called him cute. And besides that, Lavi had asked him out. Allen was not stupid, he knew Lavi didn't ask him out, like,  _date out._ But Lavi had asked him to hang out with himself, and maybe that meant Lavi wanted to get to know him better.

_Maybe_ , Allen thought as he slowly closed his eyes, _they could be friends._


	2. Forced to have fun

When Allen woke up, he had strange feeling he had dreamed about someone, but he couldn't quite remember who. It might have been Mana or Cross, or maybe even somebody totally random person who he didn`t even know. He lied on his bed, other arm placed behind his head and eyes wandering on the ceiling. He didn't remember what the dream was like, but he had the uncomfortable feeling it hadn't been a nice one. He was also a little sweaty which was a sign of a nightmare since Allen rarely had those other kind of dreams that made you sweat.

After a while of pointless staring Allen got up and stretched his arms and back. He shuffled slowly into a bathroom and met himself in the mirror. He didn't look very good and had great black circles under his eyes.

"Aren't I just a lovely sight?" he said with weary voice. "Well... At least all the emo kids will be damn jealous ofme since I have better black shadows under my eyes than them." Allen splashed some fresh water on his face and shuffled all the way back to his bed.

His school had started on Friday so luckily to him, this day would be the day off and if he had nothing to do he could always get a little more sleep to get rid of that emo phase his eyes were having without his permission. He took a quick look at the clock and smiled when it was only 09:30. The Young boy closed his eyes and let his mind fell slowly back into comfortable darkness.

It was so nice. It was so warm. It was so quiet.

Well.. it  _was_  all that until he heard a horrible sound of somebody knocking on his door.

_Ugh, I'm really not in the mood of being social,_ Allen thought as he slowly got up and walked to the door while the knocking started to sound impatient. As he was reaching the handle he hesitated for a moment. This was his day off. What if it was somebody he really didn't want to see? What if it was Cross? Or a teacher who had something to discuss with him? He was feeling kind of good today and didn't want it to get ruined. Then again...

Allen decided that whether it was uncomfortable or not, it might still be something important.

He couldn't have been more wrong about that.

Behind the door he was greeted by a very obtrusive redhead with a way too happy smile on his face and a bag on his shoulder looking like he had absolutely nothing to do with anything important.

"Heeyy Allen! What's up? How you're doing?" Lavi stated happily.

Allen crossed his arms and looked at Lavi tired. "If you really want to know, I was sleeping."

"Aww, how sweet. Sleeping beauty." Allen desided to ignore that comment. "So why aren't you sleeping anymore?" Lavi asked as he pushed white haired teen off his way when he entered to the room.

"Well my precious time with my bed was rudely interrupted by  _you_. But it's ok because I was kind of awake already so I ques this means I just can't go back to sleep. Now what in the earth do you want from- HEY!" Allen suddenly shouted "How did you even find my room?!"

Lavi was over the bookcase reaching a book and started to browse it carelessly. "Oh I just asked the school staff and they gave me the number of your room and all that. Pretty cool having a friend whose brother just happens to be the school's principal."

Allen raised an eyebrow and his mouth had dropped open. "Does that friend happen to be Lenalee?"

"Bingo!" Lavi clapped his hands together cheerfully and then all of sudden grapped Allen's wrist. "Now let's get going. She is waiting."

Allen just stared at other boy and stammered while he was dragged out of the building. "Wait, what? Who is? Where are we going? Why  _should_  I  _be_  going with you?"

"Duh? Because yesterday none of my so called friends had time to hang out with me, I figured out we should do it today!" Lavi explained and pulled Allen out to the parking lot. "Just you, me and Lenalee. We are gonna have so much fun! I think we should go shopping and then maybe go some place nice to eat. Oh and I think we could take a lot of pictures in those funny machines! For a memories of our day together ya know? Do you know what those things are called? I don't. Or I do but I never seem to remember."

Allen pushed his feet hard on the ground and wrenched his hand free from Lavi's grip. "Just wait a second! I have no intention to hang out with you guys! You can't just go running to my room and kidnap me with you."

Lavi gave him an odd look and tilted his head a little. "Why not? I think everyone should be spending their Saturdays with friends."

Allen felt a slight blush colouring his cheecks. "Who... who said I wanted to be friends with you guys?" he stuttered with a small voice.

Lavi turned around face to face with Allen with a surprised look on his face. "Well do you not want to be my friend then?"

The White haired boy looked everywhere except at Lavi's one staring eye. "I... I never said I don't want it either. It just that it might not be a good idea to be my... friend." Allen felt it really hard to let out that last word.

"Pssh, you're being ridicculous!" Lavi laughed and slapped Allen's back. "Of course it's a great idea. I never have bad ideas!"

"What are you guys being so loud about?" a sweet voice asked behind them. Allen turned to look over his shoulder and saw Lenalee standing right behind himself. And the boy had to admit she looked really cute. Like really  _REALLY_  cute.

"Hi Lenaleeeeee!" Lavi immediately greeted the girl and she answered back with a smile. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yup, as ready as ever." she exclaimed sweetly. "So Allen," she asked walking closer to boy and giving him a gentle smile. "Have you desided which seat you wanna take?"

Allen felt really dump. "S...seat?" He asked slowly.

Lavi let out a burst of laughter and ruffled young males white hair. "Allen you're so cute! I'm driving us to town of course. With my car. Which does have seats inside it."

_What do you mean 'of course'? I had no idea you have a car!_  Allen snorted and looked away a little ashamed. "Well then uh... I think I'll take the backseat." Lavi opened a door to him and Lenalee climped to the frontseat. And Lavi, of course, was driving.

***

Apparently it took a little while to drive to the town, so Allen had a lot of time to think. When he had gotten into a car Lenalee had talked a lot of places she wanted to go and things she wanted to do. And so did Lavi. At first they had tried to took Allen into conversation too but because Allen didn't have anything funny or complementary to say the conversation had pretty fast confined just to two of them leaving Allen in the background. Allen had realized the car was a little bigger than it seemed to be from outside and between the front and backseats was a little more space than usually. Since radio was also on, boy couldn't quite correctly even hear what Lavi and Lenalee were talking about but it seemed they had fun. And the weird thing was that it made Allen feel a little superfluous. He didn't understand why because he had always been fine with being unnoticed but now when people had forced him to have good time with them it felt a little sad that he had already been left out of it.

So Allen just leaned his head to the window and watched two of them talking.  _I don't care, I never wanted to go with them anyway_. He just convinced himself that this wasn't bothering him more than it should have been. A great song carried itself from the speakers to his ears.  _This radio channel is pretty cool. Or maybe it is a CD player?_  Allen glanced quickly at the front and it indeed seemed to be a CD player. He let let out a satisfied sneer and let the music fill his head while closed his eyes to enjoy the ride. Lavi seemed to have a great taste of music and Allen sang along quietly to those songs he knew and just enjoyed the rest of them. It was actually kind of enjoyable moment and suddenly he didn't care for real if those other two were talking to him or not. He just enjoyed himself at his own private place in the backseat of the car. Lavi's driving was very stable and comfortable and the car smelled nice.

_I wonder if this is what Lavi smells too_... Allen downright teared his eyes open and popped up.  _What the hell I just thought? Did I actually just wonder what Lavi would smell like?!_

White haired teen took a quick look at Lavi. The other boy was still blathering about something and he looked really cheerfull. And happy. Allen leaned back to the window and watched boringly at the landscape darting past not closing his eyes again or singing any more songs.

***

"And theeeeeere you go Cinderella, hop out of your carriage pleaaase?" Lavi joked while opening the door to Allen with a ridicculous act.

"Lavi can you please stop referring me to a Disney princesses?" Allen stated dryly but still kind on tenderly. Lenalee giggled a little and tapped Allen on the shoulder.

"Haha! Allen, he's just teasing you because he knows you get mad about that! Just let it be and he stops...". Allen raised an eyebrow. "..Eventually."

Lavi took a hurt expression. "WHAT?" he gasped and hit himself on the chest. "Lenalee, that like really hurt my innocent feelings! I would never ever do such a thing."

"Yeah I so believe you would not" Allen commented.

"Allen. You are so cruel."

Lenalee slipped her arm over Lavi's and her other arm over Allen's. "Now now boys. Don't waste our pretty day for arguing. I have a couple of shops I need to visit and I could really use a few helping hands." She giggled cheerfully and Allen and Lavi knew very well why she wanted to come with them in the first place. But who could blame her? Allen was pretty sure it was just natural act for girls to use boys to carry their stuff.

The day passed quickly and before the three of them even realized it was already an afternoon. Lenalee had found absolutely fabulous blue dress (with a price so high Lavi had wondered out loud how in the earth she could afford it) and a pair of black shoes. Lavi had visited at every store he could find and he had left Allen and Lenalee alone for the most of the time when he himself was running around like a little kid. Allen wondered why Lavi had even  _wanted_  friends with him? He seemed to do just fine by himself shopping the book store.

"ALLEEEEN! LOOK!" the redhead screamed so loud Allen was surprised the whole mall didn't come running to see what was wrong. The young boy just turned his head to the other direction and pretented to wach shoes. Unlucky forhim they were women's and he got a few odd looks from the people passing him.

"AAAAA~LLLEEEEEE~NNNNNNN!?" an interrogative voice echoed in his ears. Allen felt the blush of shame cover his cheecks and with a irritation he marched to the book store.

"WHAAAAAAAT?" he screamed to loud and so close to Lavi the boy jumped back in fright.

"Uh...nothing really," Lavi said looking a little confused. "I just wanted to show you this. Look." Allen reached the book Lavi was holding and took it in his hands. "See? Isn't that wonderfull? I've been looking for this  _everywhere_. I mean literally, from every bookstore I've found but no result."

"Wow..." Allen gasped. He was a little surprised of Lavi liking books. He just didn't seem that kind of person. And he was very surprised of the fact Lavi wanted to share this with him. "You must be really glad to find this then." He smiled kindly and handed the book back to the older teen.

Lavi gave him a little odd smile. "Yeah...I am." Then he put the book back to the bookcase.

"What are you doing?" Allen gasped astonished. "Didn't you just say you had looked that book from everywhere?"

"Yeah but I already spend all my money" Lavi laughed and patted Allen's shoulder. "Let's go get Lena. I think she wants home now. It's been a great day and we must all be a little tired."

And with that Lavi marched out of the store not looking back. Allen was left in place to stand and looked after Lavi as he put his hand on his pockets. He felt kind of sorry for the redhead. Lavi really seemed to be over the top about the book but he had no more money with him. His face had looked so bright and Allen thought he had never seen anyone as happy as Lavi was at that moment.

_Must be an awfull feeling_ , Allen thought. He looked over his soulder to book Lavi wanted. He didn't have any money with him either. But...

Allen quickly picked the book from the bookcase and walked to merchant. He cleared to his troath and handed over the book. "Ahem, excuse me sir?"

"Mmmh?"

"Could you be so kind and set this book aside for me. I would come to pick it up later the next week. I don't have money with me right this moment but this is really important."

***

When Lavi had driven Lenalee home first and Allen had refused to take a frontseat after her the drive to a school had gotten a bit... silent. Lavi didn't say anything. Allen didnt say anything. Lavi had turned the music very low. It has already got dark.

Allen just rolled a string of his hoodie around his fingers and silently watched Lavi from the back. His silver eyes didn't yet have had time to explore the other boy but now when Lavi, wasn't paying any attention to him, there wasa good time for that. Allen let his curious eyes run trough Lavi's attractive face and his one marvelous green eye. His eyes took a good while at his bright red hair and quickly run across his whole body which seemed to be in very good shape (not that he could tell correctly since Lavi had his clothes on). Allen shut his eyes quickly when Lavi glancedat him and pretented to be asleep.

He didn't dare to open his eyes in case Lavi was still watching at him, but after a while when car stopped he slowly opened his eyes.

Lavi's face was only a few inches away from his own.

"Aaaah!" Allen shouted and hit his head accidentally to the window.

"Oh sorry!" Lavi laughed and leaned back. "I thought you were asleep. I planned to wake you up but you managed to do it by yourself at time."

Allen felt his face turn as red as other boy's hair. Lavi had been so close to him. A way too close. So close he could have felt older one`s breath on his face. He had seen every freaking eyelash Lavi had. He had seen all the shades of green his eye had. And he had confirmed the fact that Lavi's car did indeed smell like him.

"Hey dude are you coming?" Lavi's voice interrupted his thoughts. "I don't have all evening to wait you get out of the car ya know?"

"...I'm coming" Allen answered awkwardly and jumped out of the car. He walked past Lavi avoiding his glance and put his hand to his pocket to get his keys.

"Owwwwww shiit..." Allen stated slowly.

"What?"

"I don't have my keys. I left so fast in the morning I didn't even had a time to think about getting them with me." Suddenly Allen felt a huge need to just subside into the ground and never get back up. He was tired and his feet hurt and he really didn't want to spend the night outside.

Lavi grapped Allen's arm and pointed at the gates. "Look, there is somebody there! We could ask him to let you in and then you could go to the dorm supervisor and ask for help. Sounds good eeeh?"

Allen gave Lavi a punch to his side. "Don't you 'eeeh' me. This is your fault for dragging me with you without asking."

Before Lavi could say anything, they both heard really irritated voice from the gates.

"Oi! Stupid rabbit. What in the fuck are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at home making yourself even somewhat frucking usefull?"

Lavi froze on the spot he was standing and leaned to speak to Allen. "Allen my dear, I don't think you can get any help from that guy."

Allen raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because that tender and sweet guy right there is Yuu. And he is..."

"HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU  _NOT TO CALL ME BLOODY FUCKING YUU_?"

"...not the kind of guy who exactly likes to help people."


	3. A Sleeping problem

Yuu Kanda considered himself as a perfectly normal guy. A perfectly normal guy who just didn't really like people. And by that he meant he respected personal space very passionately and was ready to commit violence towards anyone who didn't respect his. He didn't like communicatin with people or hanging out with them or being in touch with anybody. And he really didn't like helping people if it didn´t benefit him in any way.

And he didn't quite know why but he had very strong feeling about coming to hate that someway short white haired guy standing right next to that stupid Lavi.

"What are you doing here?" Kanda asked dryly.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I just came here to get my stuff and now I'm leaving. How about you?"

Lavi bounched to him happily as Kanda leaned back like Lavi was some sort of disease. "Well, Yuu my dearest friend, we were at the town and-"

"I didn't ask where you  _were_ , I only asked what are you doing  _here_ _?_  As far as I can remember you don't live in here."

"I dooooon't ~ But our little sweet Allen here does" Lavi sang and pushed Allen in front of the wannabe samurai.

Kanda didn't give the white haired teen any attention and was still looking at Lavi. "So?"

"So he kind of forgot his keys and he can't really get in."

Kanda didn't blink an eye. "So?"

Lavi smiled a little hopefully rubbing his neck. "So uh... We were hoping that maybe you could help us to get in."

"No."

"Aww come on it wont take long."

"No."

"Yuuuuu! Don't be so mean" Lavi cried "Allen really can't get in without help."

Kanda sneered ironically. " _Oh poor baby_."

Allen felt slightly irritated. This Kanda person really started to annoy him.

"Don't bother Lavi, " he stated giving the long haired boy a cold look. "It seems we're not getting any help from that girl."

Kanda laid his eyes on Allen for the first time during the conversation. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, you're excused." Allen wheedled in his most innocent and perky tone.

If a look could kill, Allen would have been dead in a millisecond. So cold was Kanda's glare. "What part of me reminds you of a girl?"

Allen gasped like he was totally surprised and genuinely sorry. "Oh my! I must have mistaken you for a girl because you have such a pretty face and long girly hair."

The white haired boy barely had time to realize what happened when Kanda decided to hit his fist against his face. The younger teen staggered back and Lavi catched him with his hands. Rising his fingers to touch his cheek, Allen could feel a nasty bruise forming on his pale skin.

"Oh sorry" Kanda smirked. "I didn't realize your small childlike body couldn't handle a weak punch like that. My bad."

Allen wrenched himself free from the hands of the redhead and for a little while Lavi hoped that he wouldn't attack Kanda. Unfortunately he was wrong. Lavi let the small angry white thing free and digged a phone from his pocket.

" _Hello?_ " answered Lenalee's formal voice.

"Lenalee? Hi it's me Lavi."

" _Oh hi_ _!_ "

"Hey, uh, would you give me Tiedoll's number? I'm sure you have it somewhere." Lavi laugheda bit apologizing.

" _Oh... sure, okay. Why do you need it? Did something happen_ _?_ "

"Hm? Oh, no no everything's fine. Our friendly little Yuu here just happened to start a fight with Allen..."

" _What?! Oh that short tempered Kanda... How is Allen? Did Kanda beat him up too bad_ _?_ "

Lavi turned his head slightly to see how his friends were doing. "Well believe me or not but he is surprisingly strong and somehow it looks like Yuu is getting his ass beaten as much as Allen does. So, you call Tiedoll to get him home?"

_"_ _Ok. I'll do that. Bye_ _._ "

"Great, thanks. Bye."

After a moment of watching sparring between the little white pup and the harshly swearing wannabe samurai, Lavi saw a car arrive atthe yard. Out of the car stepped the sympathetic-looking oldish man. It was Tiedoll, Kanda's formal father.

"Now now Yuu- darling! What are you doing?" he gasped gently and hurried to pull Kanda away from Allen and Lavi in turn pulled Allen back.

"Hands off of me old man" Kanda hissed and wrenched himself free. "And don't fucking call me  _Yuu!_ "

"Yuu- darling don't use such a harsh language. Who is your new friend?" Tiedoll smiled and turned to Allen.

Allen stood straight up and stretched out his hand to him. "My name is Allen Walker. Nice to meet you sir" he informed formally and with a kind smile added "At this point I would like to point out that Kanda and I are not friends."

Tiedoll responsed to his smile. "That's just the way Yuu is."

Kanda crossed his arms and marched angrily to the car. "Che."

Tiedoll still keep his kind smile while walking after him. "Now now Yuu- darling, don't be so shy."

Lavi watched them go. He knew very well that Kanda was anything but a shy person - unless it came to a romantic things or relationships. Then Kanda was totally lost.  
The Redhead`S thoughts were interrupted when he suddenly felt a slight pull on his sleeve and turned to face worried looking Allen.

"You happen to have a number of someone who could let me in?" the younger boy asked. His voice sounded tired.

Lavi felt his heart suddenly drop at the bottom of his stomach.  _Don't look at me that way man..._ "Aww sorry, I don't know any number we could call" He apologized and patted Allen's head. "And we don't really have a place to go since we can't go in mine, so... hey!"

Lavi left Allen standing confused and rushed after Tiedoll.

Allen tilted his head. "Lavi? Lavi where are you going?" But Lavi didn't either hear him or he just didn't care to answer. Allen wiped his hair off of his face and watched Lavi explain something to Tiedoll and Kanda becoming really mad at him and then becoming very mad mad at Tiedoll about something he just said.

After a moment Allen faced bright Lavi whose smile was very self-satisfied and proud.

"Don't you worry my little friend!" he declared loudly. "I've solved our sleeping problem. Now we have a wonderful and safe place to go."

"...such as?"

"Yuu's home."

"WHAT?" Allen shrieked in surprise.  _Lavi must be joking...right? RIGHT?_

***

At the momentTiedoll unlocked the front door opening it Kanda stormed in and right to his room. Lavi marched happily after him but Allen hesitated. He had apologized Tiedoll many times during the drive to their home and he was really sorry he had to bother other people like this. But Tiedoll had assured that if he didn't have place to sleep he was more that welcome in theirs and Kanda had assured that there would be no way Allen could ever sleep in his room. Sadly, there was no choice since they had kind of small house and Kanda had room large enough to put a mattress to the floor.

"Are you still worrying you are troubling us?" Tiedoll's gently voice called from kitchen. "Don't worry, it's okay."

"I'm sorry" Allen answered mechanically, took his shoes off and wandered to the door that he assumed to be Kanda's. He stepped inside and stood uncomfortably in the doorway.

Kanda's room was actually very nice. It wasn't very disordered and there didn't seem to be much stuff. Couple of katanas gently placed over the bookcase (which didn't contain that many books) and one huge poster of an movie Allen didn't know. There was a single mattress on the floor beside the bed which Kanda sat on looking pissed.

Lavi was laying on the bed next to him and smirked. "C'mon Yuu! Think about the bright side of this: it's like a sleepover! You don't do that too much so this should be fun."

"I don't do sleepovers. It's not fun to be around people I don't like so how in the name of motherfucking God could this be fun?"

"Aww Yuu don't go on breaking my heart like that."

"I hate you."

"You only say that because you know I'm right" Lavi smiled. It looked like Kanda was trying to break his neck the second after.

When the wannabe samurai was done torturing Lavi he crossed the room in a couple of strides and stop right in front of Allen. "Move."

Allen winced. "Huh?"

"I said 'move' Moyashi. The light switch is behind you."

"Oh sorry I didn't – what? _MOYASHI_?"

"Aww" Lavi's voice said from the floor. "Sweet you just gave him a nickname! ~"

"I thought you died." Kanda stated dryly. "What a pity."

"What is... what is moyashi?" Allen asked and felt the slight blush cover his cheeks. He felt so goddamn embarrassed.

Kanda just pushed him off his way and slammed the lights off. "It meansbeansprout."

"I'm not a beansprout!" Allen protested loudly.

The long haired boy just threw his shirt off and slumped on the bed. "That's how you look to me."

"My name's Allen" Allen snorted quietly. When Lavi also took his shirt off and settle himself comfortably to the mattress, Allen watched the two of them in confusion. "Hey...?" he started and thought the way to ask his things nicely since he didn't want to piss Kanda off more that he already was.

"What." Kanda said harshly like it wasn't even a question.

Allen hesitated a moment and fiddled his cuffs. "Umm... Yuu -"

"Kanda."

"Kanda.. There is only one mattress here. Where do  _I_  sleep?"

Kanda turned over and gave Allen an  _are-you-seriously-that-stupid_ kind of look. "Well where do you think? You're sleeping next to Lavi. Now go to sleep or I will have to beat you unconscious."

Allen swallowed and looked down to the floor where Lavi was smiling to him kindly. Did he really have to sleep next to Lavi? ( _A good looking shirtless Lav_ i, he added in his head).

"C'mon princess" Lavi laughed "I wont bite you. Unless you're into that. Just kidding just kidding, don't look so scared! And besides, there is nothing wrong with two dudes sleeping next to each other. Right?"

"R...right.." Allen conceded. He slowly knelt on the mattress and crawled awkwardly under the blanket next to Lavi. He kept that small space between their backs and closed his eyes.

After a moment of trying Allen was still awake. He just couldn't get to sleep when he was this close to the redhead. He could almost feel their backs touching. It felt really odd. Allen had never really slept next to anybody - maybe next to Mana but... it was different. This was somebody totally stranger to him. Allen turned over and saw that Lavi had turned over too. The white haired boy caught himself once again thinking that Lavi was indeed very handsome.

_I wonder_ _,_  Allen thought,  _d_ _oes he like somebody... but then again, he's flirting with everybody. Even me_ _._ The thought of Lavi flirting with him and then right after with somebody else suddenly was clutching his heart. _Stop!_ Allen commanded himself,  _Stop this instantly! You don't like Lavi! You are only friends and nothing more. You don't like Lavi. You don't want to like Lavi._

"Can't get to sleep?"

Allen winched and found himself staring at Lavi's bright green eye. "...I'm not used to sleep next to people."

"I am" Lavi stated with a gentle smile. "It's usually better than sleeping alone."

Allen looked away. "Sometimes it's just better to be alone."

"Maybe." Lavi answered happily. "But I like it. I mean, what's better than having a sexy babe in your bed? You can bang all night and then she keeps you warm until the morning comes."

"Sounds like you have awfully lot of women to keep you warm" Allen snorted.

An awkward silence followed his sentence. After a while of eyeing random corners and listening to each others heavy breathing Allen finally spoke again. "Do you always keep your eyepatch on while you're sleeping?"

"When I'm with people, yes. Sometimes when I'm sure I'm alone, no."

"Oh. What is under of it? I mean..." Allen stammered trying to formulate a sentence correctly. "Do you still have and eye there or..?"

Allen could have sworn he saw a dark and odd look at the redhead's face but it was gone so quickly he wasn't really sure. Lavi was back to his smiling face. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"That's okay. We all have secrets we don't like to talk about." Allen was sure Lavi meant the fact that Allen was the only one in school dorm who had a single room. "But what about you? You are still full dressed. I mean dude, shirt and socks and all! Aren't you hot?"

"No I... I like it this way" Allen muttered.

"Hmmmmh?" Lavi's voice was full of interest. "You haven't undressed in front of anybody before? I mean, never ever?"

"...nope."

"Why?"

"I just don't want to. I just like to keep my clothes on thank you very much."

Lavi leaned closer until he was just an inch away from Allen`s face. "I wouldn't mind undressing you myself." He smirked.

Before Allen even realized what Lavi had just said to him Kanda jumped up from his bed and his face was burning red.

"OH MY GOD!" He bellowed waving off his hands. "This is my room! If you just have to violate my personal space and sleep at my home -  _in my room to be correct_ \- then at least act like a normal person! Don't just go on and fuck somebody's brains out on my floor!"

"Uh.." was all Allen got out of his mouth.

"Yuu come on-" Lavi started to defend himself.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Kanda screamed grapping Allen's collar and pulling him to his bed. "You are going to sleep in my bed with me and Lavi is going to sleep alone in the floor. Nobody's gonna undress nobody!"

He just showed Allen violently to the wall and giving ablanket to him turned his back. "Sleep. Don't touch me, don't roll over me or cuddle me in your sleep or I will cut your arms off."

"Umm.. okay. I'm sorry but I don't really understand. It's not like Lavi and I were gonna do anything."

"Moyashi ,I swear to fucking God if you don't start sleeping now."

"My name's Allen." Allen said and turned his back feeling very pissed at Kanda. Although he didn't know was he pissed off because Kanda was such an idiot towards him  _or_  because he might have wanted to know if he and Lavi really were gonna do something.

Lavi laid down and tried his luck. "Good night?"

"Just fucking shut your mouth and don't communicate with anybody ever again."


	4. You are very cute

Allen woke up slowly to the sound of the alarm clock. His vision was blurry and he was still half asleep and did not exactly know where he was. Only thing he knew was that he was under a blanket in somebody's bed - and this wasn't his bed for sure. Allen tried to get his eyes open but the sleepy eyelids didn't wanna cooperate with his brain so Allen decided he could close them for another moment.

When he wriggled around trying to find a comfortable position his head hit something warm and soft. The white haired teen raised his head and suddenly felt apunch on his stomach.

"You know if I really try I can put up with the fact that you apparently steal all the fucking blanket while sleeping, but I remember telling you not to touch me, moyashi."

_Ah._ Now it all came clear back to Allen's mind. He was in Kanda's house because of the key-accident and because of the other unnecessary things he had also ended up in Kanda's bed.

"I'm not touching you. My head just accidentally hit your back." Allen objected.

"Your head just accidentally hit my back. That is so not touching me _right_?" was the long haired guy's aggressively sarcastic response. "Now that you're awake you could at least give me back my blanket and get the fuck up."

Allen snorted. "You have such a filthy mouth."

"You have no idea."

What that was supposed to mean, Allen really had no idea. But he wasn't in the mood of fighting so he got up, jumped over Kanda and wandered to the door. "I'm going to wash my face."

"Thank you for the useless piece of information I need at no point in my life."

***

Allen splashed the ice cold water on his face and stared blankly himself on the mirror. He looked really tired and those dark circles under his eyes had not disappeared anywhere. A little voice inside his head told him they probably never would. He scratched the back of his head lightly with his hand while wiping the water off of his face with the other. After a while he lifted his head up.

Suddenly the last night popped up to his mind.  _Oh, yeah..._ Cheeks lightly blushing he thought about how he and Lavi were lying on the floor. Together. On the same mattress. They had been so close each other and it had been a bit scary but it had also felt so warm and comfortable and exiting. He could almost still smell Lavi's wonderful scent.

_Damn, I wish Kanda would have never interrupted us..._

An unpleasant thought slithered in his mind.

Could it be that he might have developed a crush on the red head?

"No." Allen gasped at his reflection.

_Yes._

"No. Get yourself together, you don't even know him. You have known of his existence only like two days. At max. "

_But you could get to know him better._

"We are not going to have a crush on a handsome one eyed redhead who - for some reason - makes us feel special and interesting."

_But the feeling that someone thinks you are special and interesting is great._

"BUT WE DON'T WANT THAT!"

Lavi's curious face popped up behind the door. "What you don't want? Tell me too. And who are you even talking to? There is nobody there. You're funny."

Allen turned around in a surprise. "I - we - uh - nothing."

"... I'm confused."

"I mean I was talking to my... reflection." Allen felt once again so embarrassed he could die.

Lavi jumped to Allen with a speed of a lightning and squeezed him so hard the younger teen thought his bones were gonna break. "Man I can't take this! You are so cute and sad little thing you know? If you have no one else to talk to you can always come to good old Lavi! You don't have to talk with your reflection!"

_Well_ _,_  Allen thought,  _It's not like I usually want to bother people with my "problems"._

When Lavi was done squeezing Allen to death he leaned to the door and smiled gently looking at the other boy. The white haired boy just ignored it and tried to tame his messy bed hair, but when after a minute or two Lavi was still looking at him he turned around to face him.

"What?"

"Nothing" Lavi smiled. "You're just very cute... that's all."

If there was a color more red than an actual red, that's what Allen's face would have looked like. This was not his imagination or anything like that. At this moment Lavi was actually clearly flirting with him.

"You think so? I mean I - uh - yeah. Thank you."

"Yeah, I really do think so. Sweet little Allen. A real cutiepie."

Allen sneered and smiled. "You are a freaking weird, you know that?" He walked to the door and pushed it open.

***

The school day was just asthe previous one: nobody really noticed Allen and classes just passed by one by one. Actually it was like the young boy was not at school at all. His thoughts wandered somewhere else and mostly focusing on a certain redhead and all the thing that could possibly happen between the of of them if he would just let them.

The more he thought about it the better he realized that there were few facts that he could not deny: Number one was that Lavi had flirted with him.  _Clearly_ _._  No choice. And he seemed to be truly interested of him. Number two would be that Allen himself did in fact have crush on Lavi even if he tried to deny it. And the number three was that there was nothing Allen could do about that.

The white haired boy knew very well there was a reason he hadn´t let anybody get really close with him, but something inside him made him hope this would be different. Nobody had really shown any interest in him like Lavi had and it really did set his hopes up.

When the clock started to turn to four and all the classes where over and done - and when Allen had had one reprimand about his lack of attention - he headed right to the hallway where he sat down to bench and leaned to the wall.

"Man I'm so tired..." he sighed.

"Tired? Then you should sleep! I do that all the time in the school. Teachers don't like it very much but hey, what can you do!"

Allen lifted his head and faced once again Lavi's green eye staring at him cheerfully.

"Are you stalking me or something?" the younger teen retorted. "Feels like you're freaking everywhere!"

Lavi bursted a laugh and sat down next to Allen. "Nah I'm way too loud and stupid to stalk anybody."

"I beg to disagree..."

"But I agree that I was looking for you. What are your plans later today?"

"Please tell me you are not going to drag me at the mall with you again..."

Lavi's bright laughter resounded at hallway. "Ahaha, Allen you are so funny! To the mall you say. Pfft! We are not going to the mall I promise. Just tell me, do you have something important to do today?"

Allen looked down to the floor thoughtfully. "Umm.. I quess not. I do have some cleaning to do in my room but I ques that's not so huge job (to do)."

"Ssssssplendid. ~" The redhead sang and jumped up. "I'm having a party tonight and you are very welcome to join us to my place."

"I ques that's - WHAT? A PARTY?!"

"Yup, that's what I said. A party. P - A - R - T-"

"Tomorrow is a school day!"

"I know... do I look like I care?~"

Allen just stared at the other boy shocked. "I - uh - how would I put this... I'm not really good with parties and people and stuff. And besides I don't drink that much."

Lavi patted Allen's head lightly and kept smiling. "You don't have to. Lenalee shows up in my parties sometimes and she doesn't drink too much either. You should really come. It will be fun!"

"I don't know Lavi..."

"Aww man come on pleaaaaaasee?" Lavi pursed up his lower lip.

_S_ _igh._ "Okay... I quess it's fine then."

"Great! I'll text to you my address!" the redhead whooped and then suddenly leaned closer to Allen and for a very quick moment Allen thought Lavi was going to kiss him. But instead of that Lavi whispered to his ear:

"I'm really looking forward to see you there, Allen."

And then just like that he danced away leaving Allen sat there cheeks burning red.

_Okay I ques we are going to the party tonight then..._

When he was recovered from the surprise he covered his face with his hands. Allen felt dumb when he blushed like that but he could not deny that having Lavi care about him and flirting with him and being interested about him made him feel - well - happy. Very truly happy. And this happiness was something he had thought he could never have again.

"What did that idiot rabbit say to you?"

And just like that his wonderful feeling of happiness was gone.

The young boy let his hands drop onto his lap and he stared pissed at Kanda who stood in front of him looking at least as pissed as Allen.

"What do you want?"

Kanda didn't bat an eye. "I want to know what he said to you." It was not a question.

"I don't see how that is your business -" Allen tried to stood up but Kanda pushed him back to the bench with one hand.

Allen stared frustrated at the wannabe samurai. "Well if it's so important to you he just asked me to come to his party."

Kanda raised and eyebrow. "Do you plan to go?"

Shrug. "I promised I would go. So I quess yes."

"Do you like him?"

The white haired teen flinched and opened his mouth, then closed it and then opened it again. He couldn't do anything but to open and close his mouth like a fish. After a little quiet moment of awkward staring Kanda spoke again.

"Do you like him?"

It should have been very easy to answer since Allen had already admitted to himself that he liked Lavi, but for some reason he just didn't want to tell that to Kanda. So he just shrugged and looked away trying to seem like he wouldn't really care.

"So you do like him."

"Well I-"

"Then don't go."

"Wha- why?!" Allen gasped out loud.

"Hey, it's not like I care about you but here is some very good advise: don't fucking go there. Lavi is well known womanizer in this school and he's probably trying to get into your pants. He doesn't care about you, he only cares about what he's going to do with you in the bedroom."

Allen jumped up and this time the long haired boy didn't even try to stop him. He was seemingly taller than Allen so he had to look down a little to be able to look him in the eyes and when he did, he faced very angry and annoyed silver gray eyes.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are but you have no right to talk badly about Lavi just because you don't like him! And even less you have the right to tell me to go or not to go somewhere!" When he realized he was yelling he quickly lowered his voice. "I don't know what you have against me but stop harassing me!"

Kanda smirked and turned away. "Ok fine. Not my problem when you end up crying after him. You are just so fucking stupid."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes, you are. I hate people like you who never listen and just childishly believe everything if it's said nicely. Pathetic."

Allen pushed him off his way. "Well if you hate me so much then I would be more than pleased if you just left me alone." And then he left Kanda standing alone in the hallway. The long haired guy just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

The way into Allen's room was longer than usually because the boy felt very frustrated and for the first time in his life he really felt he needed to punch somebody in the face (and that somebody would be Kanda. Allen entered his room and slammed the door close and then he just fell on the bed.

"I don't care how much Kanda hates me. He has no right to wander around the school talking shit about people. He can't change my mind. I am going to the party" he hissed face buried in his pillow. " _I am so going to the party_."

And when Allen actually stood outside Lavi's front door feeling very alone and very small, scared to ring the bell he had no idea why in the world he did decide to come to the party.


	5. The Party

_Doorbells are awfully loud. What makes it so hard to ring a doorbell anyway? Is it because everybody inside immediately knows you have showed up and then you just can't ran away because that would be_ _cowardly_ _? Or is it because they might be waiting for a cool guy or a pretty girl and then it's a huge disappointment when you walk in and it 'just you'?_

That is what Allen thought when he stood outside Lavis front door hand ridiculously stretched out towards the bell.

He didn't really want to go inside and join all the people he didn't know. But then in the other hand the only and the most important reason he was at the party in the first place was Lavi. And Lavi just happened to be inside too. With those people Allen didn't know.

"Oh come on, Allen!" he told himself "Don't be such a coward! It's just a party.."

Suddenly the door slammed wide open and it was so unexpectantly Allen jumped a few steps backward in surprise. Lenalee's pretty face popped up behind the door and her round gentle eyes focused immediately at the boy.

"Allen!" she tweeted cheerfully. "Are you coming at the party too?"

"Uh... yeah.." Allen muttered still surprised.

_So.. Lenalee is here too. That's somehow relieving._

The little Chinese girl stepped out and stretched her hand. "Come in," she said. "I'm so glad to see you here. We are having so much fun and it's so great to see you here too!"

Allen gave her a gentle smile. "Of course."

The house was a bit bigger than a regular house but even then it was a miracle all the people fitted in. Lavi clearly had a problem with knowing how much people his house could handle and this was seriously too much. Every room was filled with drunken teenagers who talked at least as loudly as the music was playing.

Lenalee dragged Allen carefully through all the people and it took a while to get in the living room where she planted him on the sofa and shove a drink on his hand.

"There you go!" she said with a convincing voice. The white haired boy just smiled and politely thanked her. When Lenalee turned away to talk to a brown haired girl, Allen put a straw to his mouth started to drink. The taste of the alcohol was bitter and strong, but the young boy felt that he needed some of that in order to survive this party. A warm liquid slowly started to tingle his toes and stomach and his head began to feel light. Allen closed his eyes and let the loud talking and music blend to the background.

"You have the most white eyelashes I've ever seen, I swear to god."

Allen opened his eyes and saw a tall man staring at him.

"I mean, damn" the man continued. "You seriously have some good genes."

"I take that as a compliment" Allen murmured and looked around to find Lenalee. Turned out she had left to get more alcohol and cake. The boy felt pretty awkward sitting in the middle of random guys and girls so he just silently sat there drinking.

His silent thoughts were cut up with a sentence that absolutely got his attention by hundred percent:

_"Why was Kanda even kicked out of the dorm?"_

Allen turned right to the guy who was talking. "Hey, uh, excuse me. What are you talking about?"

The guy turned to Allen. "We were just discussing why Kanda was kicked out of the school's dorm. You are the new kid but you still know who Kanda is right?"

Allen blinked. "I know who he is but... was he really kicked out of the dorm? I mean  _really_ _? Why?_ "

"Yeah! Haha. I think nobody knows for sure why."

Another guy opened his mouth and his voice was anything but sober. "I know. Or at least I think I doooh.. You know, it's kind of a funny story to be honesth."

_Well well,_ the white haired boy thought with a devilishly satisfied smile _._ _Looks like Kanda is as bad I as thought he was. If I ever got in a fight with him again I'll make sure he will hear about this._

Random guy laughed and continued. "You know how he has this- hahah - short temper, right?"

Allen nodded and added: "More like nonexistent."

"Well turns out there was a dude who apparently was pretty sure Kanda was gay and he just couldn't stay quiet about it."

"...so?"

"So - haha - hick - so Kanda didn't really like it. So turns out this dude thought he was gay, you know?"

_Sigh._ "Yes. You already said that."

"Oh? Yeah, right. So anyway. Kanda didn't like that very much so he happened to beat that guy up so badly the dude was already like, half dead when he got to the hospital. And Kanda kind of destroyed half of the dorm too."

Allen's mouth dropped open. " _Really?_ "

"Yeah. But the funniest thing is that Kanda really might be gay. Nobody has ever seen him with a girl."

Another guy stuck his nose in the conversation. "Yeah, except Lenalee. It seems they are dating."

"WHAT?" Allen yelled so loud the guy next to him winced. "LENALEE S DATING  _KANDA_? FROM ALL OF PEOPLE?"

"Not so loud, little guy" tall man tried to quiet him down.

_That_ _,_ Allen thought,  _can't be right. It's too hard to believe someone so precious and tender person like Lenalee would be dating such violent, mean, sarcastic, annoying, idiotic douchebag like Kanda!_

When the guy realized Allen was still staring at him, he quickly continued: "Well yeah, in theory they are dating. But I don't buy that, I think they just pretend to be together because Kanda doesn't like the thought of people knowing he is gay and he has already too many fangirls. I think they just try to keep low profile to draw attention away from him."

Allen snapped his mouth shut. "Oh."

_I shouldn't really ask, it's not my business.._

"Is he gay then?"

_Seems I asked it anyway._

Before anybody said anything, a familiar dry voice joined in: "You better be discussing something that doesn't involve me if you still want to keep on living."

Suddenly all the people sitting around the couch fell death silent.

Allen lifted slowly his head up. "...Hi Kanda."

Kanda's face was as happy as always. "I see you came here anyway. You truly are an idiot."

_Sigh._ "What are you doing here?"

"Well what does it fucking look like? If I show up at somebody's party it usually means I'm here to drink and hang out with Lenalee." Then he quickly spun his head around few times and seemed to be a little lost. "Where is she by the way?"

"...who?"

"Lena of course."

Allen sneered and leaned back. "Oh you poor thing. All alone and lost in the big bad party. Why don't you go to ask an adult to give you a ride home?"

Before he knew Kanda had grabbed his collar and pulled him up. "You know, for someone who considers himself a smart guy, you surely have no idea what self-preservation instinct is."

The white haired teen scowled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

_"_ _That_ _"_  Kanda stressed the word with tightening his grip "means that it's not very smart to pick a fight with people whose physical and mental state is way more higher than yours."

"Surely you can't be talking about yourself? The description is like the opposite of you."

It seemed like the long haired boy was just about hit Allen's nose out of place but then suddenly Lenalee popped up out of nowhere.

"Kanda! There you are! I have been looking for you."

Allen fell back on the couch when Lenalee came between them and pushed Kanda away from him.

"Lenalee" Kanda greeted shortly.

"Kanda. Please don't pick a fight with people when I'm not here to stop you." the Chinese girl chastened gently wagging her finger. "It's not very nice you know."

"..."

"Kan _da_."

"I wasn't picking a fight. Moyashi was."

"I'm not a goddamn  _MOYASHI!_ " Allen yelled, but nobody paid attention to him. Lenalee was too busy lecturing Kanda and Kanda was too busy looking diligently away from her.

Allen sat quietly back down and watched the two of them talking falling into his thoughts. The only reason he had came here was Lavi and the redhead was nowhere to be found. Also meeting Kanda like this wasn't really mood lifting, at least not after their recent conversation at the school.

_Well, it_ _was more of a fight than it was a conversation_ _..._

Allen was so deep in his thoughts that he wasn't paying attention to the pair of hands that came to embrace him from the back.

"AAAA~LLEEEE~NNNN!"

If there was air in the young teen's lungs a moment ago, it escaped at the moment Lavi's friendly surprise attack happened.

"Hhi - Lhavi" Allen chuffed.

The redhead kept squeezing his little dear friend. "You are here! Man, I was starting to worry if you had changed your mind because I couldn't find you from anywhere."

"Ugh - I'm sorry I - came a little later than I planned."

"Nah, it's totally okay. The most important thing is that you came here". Lavi lifted his gaze and saw Lenalee and Kanda staring at him. "Hi guys! You've been keeping company to Allen? Splendid."

Lenalee flashed an adorable smile. "Yes, we did. He seemed kind of lost so I picked him up and brought him in."

"Great!"

Allen slithered out of Lavi's arms.

"So" Lavi blurted out, "What have you been doing?"

The white haired teen kept staring at him in silence until he spoke. "Excuse me if this sounds stupid or something but.."

"Hmmm?"

"...what do you usually do at parties?"

Kanda snorted. "Yes that sounds very stupid. Are you asking that for real?"

"Yuu don't be so mean!" Lavi scolded and then turned to Allen. "You know, drink and play games and stuff. Like - you know - a truth or dare for example. We could actually play it right now!"

Somehow after a quick moment of running around in his apartment Lavi had gotten a lot of people to play this game. Allen had thought it was somewhat childish but it seemed a lot of people thought it was great fun.

"Okay I think everybody's here so. Yup. Who's gonna start?"

Allen watched the redhead blather and smiled. Lavi surely act like a big child sometimes.

"Okay, I quess it's Allen then."

The white haired teen almost spilled his drink. "What?"

Lavi stared at him brightly. "The bottle points at you. Truth or dare?"

Before any sound had came out of Allen's mouth, Lenalee leaned to whisper his ear. "If you choose 'dare' Lavi is going to make you kiss somebody so better to be careful with that one."

"Uh.. okay, thanks for sharing."

Lavi pursed his lip. "Lena my dear sweet friend... why do you hate me so much? Anyway - TRUUUUUTH OR DAAARE? ~"'

"I'm sitting right next to you, I can hear perfectly fine. And truth. I quess..."

The redhead slithered closer. "How many times you have had sex?"

An unpleasant silence and tension was the first thing Allen noticed after Lavi had asked his question. The feeling of many pairs of eyes staring at him was very oppressive and the young teen thought disappearing or turning invisible would be the nicest thing in the world just then.

He replied with a voice that was so quiet it was almost nonexistent. "...none."

Lenalee clearly sensed how unpleasant the question was for Allen and she clearly was on his side too, because at the moment that word came out of Allen's mouth she grabbed the bottle and declared loudly: "Me too! There is absolutely no reason to hurry since we are so young. Here let me roll the bottle."

The next person in turn was a young girl named Chomesuke who brightly shouted 'dare' before Lenalee had even asked. Lavi dared her to give him her bra and they went to the other room to do that and though Allen chatted with Lenalee and seemed like he didn't care he actually felt a jealous pinch in his chest. He had an awful feeling that Lavi and Chomesuke have had some kind of relationship in the past.

After Chomesuke's turn was two guys with a 'truth' and then it was Kanda's turn.

"Truth."

Lavi grinned. "So, Yuu. Who do  _yuu_ _l_ ike?"

"I swear to god. Someday I'm gonna cut your entrails out and feed them to the cats. Dare."

"You can't change your 'truth' to 'dare' now Kanda."

"I can do whatever I fucking please. Dare."

"This is not how you play this game..."

"Dare."

The redhead let out a sigh. "Fine. Dare. Ummh... I dare you to.. to...umm...OH! Oh oh oh I know! I dare you to make out with Allen."

"WHAT?" The yell came out of both Kanda's and Allen's mouth.

"Okay fine, just kiss him then."'

"I'm not gonna kiss that annoying little Moyashi!"

Allen snorted. "Well it's not like I'm willing to kiss you either."

"Shut your mouth."

Allen gave him an mischievous smile and tilted his head a little. "Oh? Then why don't you make me? That way you get me to shut up and you're done with your 'true love's kiss'."

The silence was there once again, but this time it was because people were holding their breath and laughter because nobody wanted to get killed but they still enjoyed Kanda being humbled.

Kanda got up, marched right to Allen and wrenched him up. "I remember talking to you earlier about your self-preservation instinct.  _You clearly still don't have one_ _._ "

Lavi stood up quickly but Kanda turned to him and pointed at him angrily. "I'm gonna fucking kiss this moron but only because otherwise you'll never let me forget that I didn't dare to do it."

"Wait that?!" Allen squeaked. "But I don't want to kiss you! You're an asshole."

"Shut up. But we are going to do it in private because I don't want everybody staring at us."

Lavi was suddenly lost of words. "Uh.. okay. You can use my room then.."

The long haired boy dragged Allen violently with him and when the door of Lavi's room closed Allen was ready to argue.

However that didn't happen because Kanda turned quickly over and pushing Allen to the wall pressed his lips against Allen's.

The young boy couldn't do anything. It was not like he was not able to: his hands were free. But somehow he felt like he was not able to move them. He was too surprised of what was happening.

The kiss felt odd. It felt strange. It felt weird.

It felt...

...surprisingly pleasant.

Suddenly the violent, mean-spirited Kanda was very tender and nice as he hold Allen's head between his hands. His lips were soft and cool and what he did - oh boy he did it good.

But Allen had never kissed anybody like this before and he knew for a fact that it was not Kanda he wanted to be kissing. He didn't like Kanda. Kanda was an asshole. The one he really wanted to be kissing was Lavi. Nice, gentle, funny Lavi who made him feel so special.

His hands slowly started to work and then - with a tiny hesitation - he gently pushed the other boy away.

When he lifted his gaze he faced Kanda who looked as confused and surprised as him. For a short moment they stared each other until Kanda was back to his normal and always so nice self.

"I fucking hope you didn't like the kiss because it was the most disgusting thing I have ever had to do."

_What an awfully mean thing to say. A moment ago he was so gentle._

Allen shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "I agree. It was disgusting."

"Che."

"Is something wrong?"

"Nothing. Now let's get going before Lavi comes running in to save you from me."

But Lavi did not come running to save him from Kanda. In fact, when the two of them came back Lenalee ran to Kanda and started to ask too much questions about the kiss and did they really do it or not - but Lavi was nowhere to be seen. Others said he went to get more beer to drink and Allen cleared himself out of the game since suddenly he didn't feel like playing it anymore.

The young teen wandered around Lavi's house but didn't really enjoy himself. He didn't feel like hanging out with Lenalee because Kanda was with her and Lavi had disappeared somewhere and Allen didn't really know anybody else. And he was not going to get to know them.

After a while he found Lavi. Or rather Lavi found him.

"AaaallllLLLLEeEeenn!~" he greeted delightfully and closet his arms around the other. "Mmmmh where have you been? I missed you."

It was hard to push Lavi away, but Allen needed to get away because he felt uncomfortable for some reason. Maybe it was because Lavi was holding him really tight without any intent to let him go or maybe it was the fact that Lavi smelled strongly of alcohol.

"You are the one who's been somewhere. And yeah.." Allen murmured. "I kinda missed you too."

Lavi pulled Allen even closer and placed his lips right next to Allen's ear. "Let's go to my room..."

Something about Lavi was a bit obtrusive and same time so tempting. Allen knew he should not go with him. But he felt wanted so the white haired boy let Lavi lead the two of them in his room.

While Lavi jumped to sit to the bed negligently, Allen stood quietly viewing him and leaned his back to the door. This was his second time in Lavi's room inside an hour and this felt completely different than the first one.

This felt exiting and new and it made his body feel chilly. Allen scratched his neck nervously and let his eyes wander around Lavi's room.

The redhead in turn examined Allen hungrily from head to toes and grinned. He put his hand to the side and patted the spot next to him.

"'Eyyy little man. Sit with me."

With a blush covering his face Allen walked to the bed and even though he left a tiny space between them Lavi quickly fixed it up by moving closer to him. He placed his other arm around Allen's shoulders and gazed him with that grin still on his face.

"I'm so jealous you know... Kanda got to kiss you.."

"Well if I remember correctly it was  _you_ who dared him to do so" Allen replied dryly.

He turned to Lavi intending to say something more but when he spun his head he noticed Lavi was only few inches away from him.

Touching Allen's neck gently Lavi leaned closer and when his lips almost touched Allen's he stopped and let a whisper out. "I want you, Allen. You're cute."

There was no time for Allen to respond to this sudden confession because he already felt the older boy's lips pressing against his own. Lavi kissed him strongly and gentle and a little by little the kiss became more passionate and he felt Lavi's tongue finding his way to his mouth.

The young teen noticed his arms closing around Lavi's neck and pulling him deeper to the kiss. Lavi tasted of alcohol but he decided not to let it bother this perfect moment. The older boy's body pressed hard against Allen's and his smooth fingers grabbed his white hair and pulled him closer. Allen in turn let his fingers run trough the red hair and Lavi's hands slowly moved to Allen's chest taking a pleasure of every inch they went on. He gently pushed the other boy on his back on the bed.

When Allen withdrew from the kiss panting heavily and gazed Lavi upon him he felt very unsatisfied. It felt like he had not been breathing at all during the kiss, but to be honest he'd rather not be breathing at all if it meant he could be kissing Lavi.

Lavi placed his hands over Allen's collar and tried to unbutton it but Allen quickly stopped him.

"Please" he breathed out.

Lavi gave him confused look.

"I just... please don't take my shirt off."

The redhead looked a bit pissed and leaned to kiss younger boy's neck. "Why?"

"Just - ah - Just don't."

"Fine then." Allen heard him answer. Lavi's hands wandered around his body and found their way to his hips. "Do you mind if I take your pants off then?"

No answer.

His fingers played with the edge of his pants, tickling the sensitive area around it. "Okay... I ques than means 'I don't mind'." He laughed. "You are pretty hard already."

When the redhead had got rid off the pants he slowly started to kiss his way down. When his lips touched low enough right next to his private area Allen let out a sudden moan.

"Ah!"

"Felt good?"

"Y-yeah" Allen gasped. "Your lips are cold."

Lavi continued to kiss him and then suddenly he parted the other's legs and pushed them higher. He climbed back to kiss Allen and with one finger he touched his pale lips.

"Suck my fingers."

"O...okay..." Allen opened his mouth and licked the long fingers covering them whit his saliva. Lavi grabbed Allen's white hair and pulled his blushing face closer his own. "Good boy."

His wet fingers went down to Allen's body and he slowly started rubbing them against Allen's ass and the sensation the young boy felt was so strong he hardly noticed Lavi's figers wanting to slip in. All he could do was to let out a gasp and squeak as he suudenly felt them going in and moving back and forth inside him. Lavi's other hand moved under his shirt (however without taking it off) and he pinched the other's nipple gently.

He pulled his fingers out off Allen who gasped heavily and his whole tiny body was shaking. Lavi leaned forward with a smug smile and bit Allen's ear gently.

"You wanna be face towards me or you want me to do you from the back?"

"Huh?"

"Okay face towards me then, I want to see your cute face gasping in pleasure."

Allen didn't have time to think or speak when he felt Lavi already pushing his member inside him. It hurt and Allen couldn't help but let out a scream. Even though it was painful it also felt kind of enjoyable and every place Lavi touched was burning hot like he was on fire. The tempo got faster and soon Allen found himself clinging on Lavi and screaming in pleasure.

***

The whole house was death silent and dark. Everybody had already left and Allen knew the time was somewhere close to the morning without needing to look at the clock. He lied on the bed on his side and stared blankly to the darkness around him.

Lavi had already fell asleep or passed out and he was snoring lightly behind the white haired boy. Allen slowly sat up and silently scrambled out of the bed and started to collect his pants off the floor. Carefully avoiding waking Lavi up, he walked out of the door and got out.

The cold night air felt chilling on his skin as he began his long and painful walk to the dorm. He knew the walking there would take a lot of time. But it was exactly what he needed: time.

Time to think about himself and what he wanted. Time to think about Lavi and what Lavi wanted. Time to think weather he would have faith in Lavi and believed that Lavi really liked him or weather would he really believe what Kanda had told him about the redhead.

"Aw man... This is exactly why I should stay away from people" Allen whimpered. He put his hands in the pockets and watched the blue autumn moon. "I wish I had food."


	6. Things don't always go according to plan

Lavi slacked lazily over the cafeteria table head buried in his arms and moaned pitifully. Lenalee was sitting opposite of him eating her lunch and she didn't really seemed to mind Lavi's complaining.

"I know this is not going the way you wanted" she commented while taking a bite of her chocolate muffin, "but you can't do anything about the fact he is not at school today..( _That little truant)_."

Lavi lifted his head up. "But I want to see Allen. I need to see him. I have to discuss last night with him."

"What happened last night anyway?" Lenalee suddenly asked and stopped her eating for a moment. "You haven't talked much about it. And that's weird since you usually never quiet about those kind of things."

Lavi pouted. "...I know. Nothing bad happened but I just need to talk with him. I mean, I fell asleep next to him and this morning when I woke up he was gone. I mean dude. Who does that?"

"You do, Lavi."

"Hmh. But I usually leave a note which says ' _thanks the sex was nice_ ' or something. I don't just disappear and never show up at school again."

Lenalee rubbed her forehead with one hand and glanced the redhead. "Why Don't you just go to see if he is in his room?"

"Like I wouldn't have already done that. The first thing I did when I realized he is not at the school was to go to see him and he was nowhere to be found. And he does not answer to my texts or anything. Aaaaa! Lenalee! Tell Allen to come to school!"

The Chinese girl sighed and pushed her plate away. "You act like a child who doesn't get a candy when he wants. I can't just tell him to come to school."

Lavi raised an eyebrow. "Well you tell me and Kanda come to school."

She blushed a little and got up. "Well - that's - uh - somebody has to keep you two in the right path when it comes to studying!" Then she looked away a little worried. "Besides, even if I wanted to tell him to come I couldn't because you just yourself told me he does not answer his phone and is not in his room either."

"That's true... Well, maybe we'll see him later and I can have a talk with him."

Lenalee gave him a sweet smile. "Yeah. I need to talk with him too. I need his number if I ever want to keep him in school with us."

The other stared at her a little confused. "Why don't you just ask me to give you his number right away?"

"I want him to give it to me himself. Besides I think it wouldn't be nice if Allen knew you just hand out his number to everybody who dares to ask."

Lavi pouted and watched Lenalee to walk away. "I don't do that."

Soon the little Chinese lady had disappeared down the hallway leaving Lavi to his thoughts. He let his gaze wander trough the yard and trough the parking lot and his usually so bright and delighted face got very serious and anxious.

_I wonder what does Allen think of me anyway? He's a strange kid for sure. But what am I to him? Am I just a friend who he was willing to jump in the bed with or does he take me for something more? I don't know. Maybe he doesn't even know for sure himself._

_It's not fair to disappear like that and leave me to wake up all by myself. There are so many things I need to ask but that little bastard just keeps ignoring my calls. I want answers. For the start, why is it so important not to take his shirt off? And why is he the only one who is allowed to have a single room in here? And the most importantly: why is he not answering his god damn phone?! Maybe he's mad at me..._

He shook his head and snorted dryly.

_Then again... why would he be? I didn't force him to do anything and he seemed to enjoy himself so there is nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. I'm worrying way too much here... This isn't like me at all._

_What do I even feel towards him?_

The sudden thought made him wince. He shouldn't be thinking of that. He should wait until he found Allen and then they could talk and he could get all the answers he wanted.

If he had to tie Allen up to a chair to do that then he would - but first he would ask nicely.

The redhead was so deep in the thought he did not notice a tall tanned man walk next to him.

"Hi there, Mr. Eyepatch" the man greeted with a smooth voice. "Long time no see."

Lavi turned completely around to face the man and examined him with an unpleasant expression. "Wha- It's you. Why are you here, Tyki?"

Tyki swept his longish curly hair away from his face and smirked. "How are you?"

"What are you doing here?"

The tall man gave him a dramatic miserable look. "We are seeing each other after a long while and all you have to say is 'what are you doing here'? That's cold."

No answer.

"If you're not in the mood to chat, fine." Tyki continued with a sweet voice. "I'm looking for a person who I suppose is studying here."

"Well go fucking look for him then."

Tyki laughed with a deep and dangerous voice. "You have become quite a rude young man when we've been away from each other. I have to say I like that."

"Fuck you."

"But yeah. I haven't seen the person I'm looking for around here so far but maybe you could tell me if you know where he is. You probably know who he his: he is hard not to notice due to his appearance."

_Oh god... don't tell me..._

"He has this white hair and he has a tattoo-like mark on his face. His name is Allen Walker. Do you know who he is? You seen him?"

Lavi turned his head coldly away. "No."

" _Oh_ " a dangerous voice kept going. " _Really now_?"

Lavi frowned. As he would ever tell Tyki on Allen.

"Yes. Really. I have no idea who you're talking about and even if I did there is no way I would tell you" the redhead announced with a pissed voice. Tyki leaned closer to him and Lavi did his best to keep his gaze away from the man.

"I see" the sweet voice stated purring. "Then I'll just have to see if I can find him somewhere else. But don't miss me too much, I think we will see again soon enough."

After Tyki had left it took a moment for Lavi to calm himseld down. Why in the earth was Tyki here? And why was he looking for Allen? Something in Lavi's heart got heavy and painful but he ignored that. He was very good at ignoring unpleasant things.

He tried to call Allen once again but when as he expected his calls got ignored. After a while of trying he madly stuffed the phone into his bag and decided it was time to go looking for him.

***

Allen held a book in his hands and he browsed the pages carefully while walking down the street. Luckily the owner of the bookstore had been kind enough to keep the book off the shelf for him and now when he hold the thing in his hands he felt weird pleasure in his chest. Allen let a gentle smile cover his face. This was the book that Lavi wanted but couldn't afford. The thought of Lavi's happy face when he would give the book for him made his whole body burst from excitement.

Yes, Lavi would become so happy and he would see that Allen cared for him and maybe he even gave him a kiss as a reward. Allen felt so joyful he even kissed the cover of the book and took a few dancing steps.

"I don't care I had to skip the school for this" he hummed cheerfully. "This was totally worth it."

The hardest thing in this whole Lavi business was to trust that Lavi would have the same kind of feelings towards him. And Allen had decided to trust in him. It was a big thing for him to do but he had never felt so strong feelings as he did now and he thought it was worth the shot.

Lavi seemed to like him back. He had told Allen several times he thought the younger boy was cute and they had already kissed and even had sex which was a lot. Why else would Lavi want to spend so much time with him?

Allen was not the type that looked the world trough the pink glitter glasses which made everything look better than it was. No, he knew better than that. But this time he allowed himself to have hope and enjoy the best thing he had had in his life until now.

When Allen lifted his gaze up from the book he suddenly froze as he recognized familiar figure walking in the distance and was seemingly looking for something. At first he thought he was imagining things or being just paranoid but this person really were who he thought he was.

It was Tyki.

The panic immediately took his whole body over as he looked wildly around to find a place to hide but all he could see was a street. Street which would lead him directly to Tyki if he kept walking the direction he was supposed to. His hands got sweaty and he started to lose his rational sense when he realized there was nothing he could do. He was too far away from the town too so if he turned around and walked back to where he was coming from Tyki would eventually catch him.

His whole body was shaking and his legs started to feel weak which made him lurch few steps to the side. A couple of people had to sidestep so he wouldn't bump into them but he accidentally still managed to hit somebody with his elbow.

"What the fuck are you doing?" asked a pissed voice that Allen recognized to be Kanda's.

He had no idea what Kanda was doing in here and where was coming from, but Allen turned immediately around and grabbed the Japanese teen's shirt. His face was colorless and his eyes were teary and horrified and it seemed he couldn't breath properly.

"Ka-ka-kanda h-h-he-help - me - help - me-"

The sentence  _'_ _what the fuck is wrong with you'_  never came out of Kanda's mouth and he felt an unpleasant feeling of compassion when the annoying Moyashi grabbed his shirt and hold onto it like his life depended on it and watched him with those silver eyes full of horror. It of course made him even more pissed.

Allen had not stopped spluttering his appeal for help and his breathing had started alarmingly to resemble a hyperventilation.

"Fine. Calm the fuck down." Kanda muttered and grabbed the other's shoulders. "What's your problem now?"

"H-h-hi-hide m-me" was all Allen got out of his mouth. To Kanda's eyes it looked like the Moyashi was not even on this planet anymore. He probably didn't even realize who he was talking to.

He grabbed Allen's hood and pulled it over his head. "If you want to hide the first thing you should do is to hide your face you idiot. There. See? Was that really so hard to do?"

Allen kept staring around himself and all he wanted to do was to ask the older boy to hide him, but the words had became too hard to form and he just kept gasping for breath. He could not feel his feet and he felt the tears running down his face as he tried to focus on something to keep his mind on the track.

"Hey!" Kanda's tough voice ordered and Allen focused his eyes on him. "Snap out of it. Just focus on... on... on something for fuck's sake. Don't give in to fear."

Allen began slowly to calm down and come to his senses. Tyki was almost where they were and the only thing the young teen could think off was to step closer to the older boy and bury his face on his shirt. He wanted to disappear. He wanted to disappear deep into Kanda's shirt and never come back. But even though he couldn't do that, he felt safe since nobody could see his face when it was under the hood and pressed against the other's chest.

Kanda in turn was totally panicked. He had no idea what was happening. Moyashi was suddenly almost  _hugging_  him and even if he wanted to push him away and cut him into pieces he had no guts to do such a thing when the other boy was clearly having some sort of panic attack. He placed his hands awkwardly over Allen's shoulders and kept standing there quietly waiting for Allen to calm down.

Tyki walked right past them not stopping for a second to think about the hooded person.

After a great while of awkwardly standing still Allen had finally calmed down. He took a step backwards and avoided Kanda's gaze which wasn't too hard since Kanda did the exactly same thing.

"Umm... hey..." Allen murmured quietly. "I apologize about that... This doesn't usually happen in public places."

"Let's just pretend this scene didn't happen and agree that we will never talk about this to anyone" replied Kanda's surprisingly calm voice.

"Yeah.. Sounds good to me."

***

The school's yard was empty and Allen had completely got over his recent panic attack as he had walked to the dorm with Kanda (who was keeping a safe distance the whole time). He was back to his normal self. He slipped in the dorm's door and pushing the book into his bag started to look for his keys. He got a little nervous when he heard steps coming closer to him but he realized it couldn't possibly be anybody who didin't have keys to the dorm or a friend who would let them in.

"Allen! I have looked everywhere for you! Why are you always so hard to find?"

Allen lifted his gaze and met Lavi who ran to him face looking as worried as ever.

"Hi Lavi!" he greeted. "I'm sorry, I was just at the town and-"

"Why weren't you answering your phone?"

"I was busy doing my own things. And" Allen continued while still searching his keys "I think my phone was on silent mode."

Lavi sighed for relief and smiled. "So it was just on a silent mode? Good. I was really worried about you, you know."

The white haired boy gave Lavi a smile so sweet it was almost he artbreaking. "I'm sorry about making you worry about me. But I'm really fine."

Lavi nodded and slowly his smile dropped as he remembered what happened earlier. "Allen.." he searched his words a moment. "Do you happen to know a guy named Tyki Mikk?"

A chills went trough the younger boy's back and he examined Lavi with a serious expression.  _Why was Lavi asking questions about Tyki? Did he know something about Allen he shouldn't have?_  "...I might know him. Why?"

"Uh, no reason." Lavi realized from Allen's gaze that Tyki was not apparently his favorite subject. "He's just somebody I know and I happened to meet him today. I was just wondering."

"I see."

_Shit. Now I have completely ruined the mood. Allen was so cheerful before I had to go ahead and ask about Tyki._

"Anyway, would it be okay if we'd go to your room?" Lavi tried to sound cheering and patted Allen's shoulder. "I actually looked for you because I have something to ask from you."

Allen immediately brightened up. "Sure! Wait..." He finally got his keys off the bag. "Here!"

Opening the door and inviting someone into his room for the first time in his life felt nice. The white haired teen put his bag on the floor and sat on his bed and smiled to Lavi who stood next to a bookshelf.

"Last time you were in my room you just rushed right in and dragged me out without asking" Allen stated with a tiny laughter.

"Oh yeah, I guess I did" the redhead laughed. "So, how's your day been? You said you were at the town."

The younger boy shrugged his shoulders. "It's been fine. I just wanted a day off and I had some business to take care off."

"And that business is...?"

And innocent smile painted Allen's pale lips as he watched Lavi. "You'll see."

"Well aren't you such a mysterious person. Which reminds me... Allen?"

"Hm?"

"Why did you leave last night while I was sleeping?" Lavi leaned to the bookshelf and didn't move his one green eye away from Allen.

Allen shrugged his shoulders again carelessly. "No reason. I guess I just wanted to think about things. And besides I knew I wasn't gonna go to school so I figured I had to come here and get my stuff before leaving to the town."

"Oh, okay. So you didn't leave because you were mad at me?"

"Wha- of course not!"

"Oh great! What a relief. I thought you were mad at me."

Allen let out a sigh. "Lavi... why would I be mad at at you?"

The redhead rubbed his neck and laughed little nervously. "Because.. we had sex?"

"I don't see how I could be mad at you for having sex with me." Allen stood up intending to close the door that Lavi had left slightly open. "Why in the earth you think I'd be mad at you because of that?"

"I'm so glad to hear that!" Lavi gave him a bright smile. "I just thought that maybe you expected me to like you or something and you got mad because I didn't return your feelings. Haha. Sorry, I can be a great over thinking idiot sometimes."

Allen froze on the place and couldn't do nothing but to stare at the redhead. "You... Do you... not like me then?"

Lavi's bright grin changed into apologizing smile. "Oh. Uh, I guess you do like me then. Okay, listen little guy.. I think you are nice but to be honest to me sex and relationships are two different things."

The white haired boy felt his heart ache like somebody would have just stabbed it with a dagger. "I... But... I thought you liked me.."

"I'm sorry Allen," Lavi said and his voice was openly compassionate. "I don't do relationships or dating or anything that kind of stuff. I thought you realized that. I thought it was only sex to you too."

All Lavi got as answer was a blank stare. Allen felt the tears burning his eyes and his lower lip started to quiver. "Lavi, please... "

Lavi felt really bad and his heart ached too for having to turn down such a sweet person as Allen, but he didn't want to lift his hopes up for nothing. "It's no use, I'm sorry. Just.. just stop liking me, okay?"

"But I already allowed myself to feel this way... Lavi please don't do this to me.."

"Allen... What happened last night was only a sex and it has nothing to do with mine or your feelings."

At that moment something snapped in Allen's head. He kept staring at Lavi, but the tears had stopped burning. "Get out."

"Huh?" The older boy startled. "Allen, listen I'm sorry-"

"GET - OUT!" Allen screamed and then he did something he never thought he would do: he stepped forward and pushed Lavi with both of his hand which made the redhead took a few steps backwards.

Allen hesitated a millisecond but then he pushed Lavi again with all his force. And again. And then again. Before he noticed he was partly pushing and partly hitting Lavi out of his room screaming with bottom of his lungs.

All the sadness he had felt a moment ago was gone and all that was left was the need to scream and hurt and hate. He absolutely hated Lavi's apologizing voice and Lavi's green eye that watched him pitying.

"Get - out- of - my - room!" Allen yelled and stressed every word with a hit on Lavi's chest. "You - fucking - asshole! You have - no idea - how I feel! It does - have something - to do with - my feelings - and you are the one - who is calling me cute - all the time!"

Lavi tried to cover himself but the younger boy was surprisingly strong and he was really startled about the situation. "Allen calm do-"

"NO!" The white haired boy screamed. "I won't calm down and I have all the reasons to be mad! Now it's the time for you to worry if I'm mad at you or not! You took my virginity and you let me believe you liked me and you  _used_ me! I never want to see you again!" Get out of my room! GET OUT OF MY LIFE!"

With the last word Lavi got a one last stroke which was so strong the redhead fell down on his back.

He was shocked. He felt terrible. Many people had gotten sad or mad when he had turned them down but none of them made him feel as pitiful and horrible as this. Only thing he could do was to watch Allen walk back in his room and slam the door behind him.

"That was pleasure to watch."

Lavi turned his head on the side and he saw his Japanese friend standing in a hallway next to him with a gleeful gaze.

"I have to say, as much as I dislike our annoying little Moyashi he made me pretty proud just now. Nobody else had beat your sorry ass as great as he did."

"Yuu, leave me alone. I know what I did was wrong but I had no idea he would react so strongly to it."

"Che. Maybe you should man the fuck up."

"Huh?"

"You say you know what you do is wrong but you do it anyway. If you really understood it was wrong you wouldn't be doing it. Do the world a favor and either go home and stay there the rest of your life or learn to notice other people's feelings."

"Yuu-"

"And don't fucking call me that. "

Lavi stood up and turned his back to the long haired wannabe samurai. "Like you are one to talk.. You don't even care about other people."

"I may not be good with social situation and I surely do not care about people. But that is exactly why I stay away from them. Unlike you. You run around and use other people and hurt their feelings and then you pretend to feel sorry for them."

"Hey! I actually do-"

"I don't give a shit if somebody had hurt you so bad in your past that you isolate your feelings and never show them to anybody, but maybe you should look in the mirror and ask yourself what do you feel about him. I had never really cared what you do and who do you hurt, but this kid apparently has some deep shit going on his life and if you have to play with somebody's feeling go ahead and choose someone else."

"Some deep... like what?"

"Find out yourself. I'm out of here. I only came here to see Lena anyway."

Kanda turned on his heels and walked coldly away.

Lavi didn't really appreciate someone like Kanda giving him lessons how to deal with people, but what he said still hurt his heart. It might have been true and Lavi knew he shouldn't have done what he did. He wanted to fix this whole situation and apologize to Allen make it up to him. But it seemed unlikely that the white haired boy would ever forgive him.

When he had just thought this day couldn't get any worse Allen's door suddenly opened and he threw a book towards Lavi.

"Have a happy fucking time reading this!"

The door slammed close again.

Yup. Lavi was pretty screwed.


	7. The game they're playing

The last school week had been the most confusing one in Lenalee's life so far. All her friends acted weird and unlike any other situations, this time nobody did as she told them to do and  just kept doing things their own way. Which wasn't too good.

Lavi had been chasing after Allen the whole week intending to talk with him and apologize but he hadn't had a chance so far because the younger boy kept avoiding him with all his might. Lenalee had told Lavi to take it easy and not to rush things and " _maybe he just needs a little time_ " and that Lavi should let Allen calm down first. But it was like talking to a wall. Lavi kept running after Allen not giving a thought to the girl's advide.

Allen in turn had been hiding mostly in his room, but when he didn't he was hanging out with Lenalee. He never talked about Lavi and what happened between them or mentioned anything that could remind him of Lavi. Usually Lavi popped out of nowhere like he used to and tried to start a conversation but everytime that happened Allen suddenly had something to do somewhere else. Lenalee had tried all her might to tell him that maybe he should hear Lavi out and maybe he shouldn't be avoiding him because it didn't solve anything but Allen just changed the subject every time she mentioned it.

And then there was Kanda.

He was the worst of them all. There was absolutely no way to get him to behave. Kanda " _didn't care about what was going on with those two_ " but still kept nagging to Lavi about what he did and then kept "accidentally" showing up where Allen was to make sure he wasn't with Lavi. Kanda blamed Lavi for being stupid and blamed Allen for having a crush on the redhead.

And even if Lenalee had told Kanda that it wasn't his business and he should let those two handle it in their own way Kanda just snorted and said that he did't care about those two.

Yes, Lenalee's week had been very confusing and frustrating. She sat on the corner a book on her lap and let out a tired sigh. It wasn't easy for her to be the only one who had no idea what was going on and yet all the three of her friends were very busy with this situation.

Like he knew Lenalee was thinking of him, Allen suddenly walked to her giving her a smile.

"Afternoon, Lenalee."

The Chinese girl smiled wearily. "Hello, Allen. How are you?"

Allen smiled back politely. "I'm just fine, thank you. How about you?"

"I'm fine... Hey, Allen?"

Gentle smile. "Hmm?"

"I just... I thought it would be fun if we gathered to my place and you know, just watched a movie and played games or something."

"That sounds fun indeed."

Lenalee's face brightened up. "Oh really? Great! I'll just ask if Kanda and Lavi are okay with-"

As soon as he heard Lavi's name Allen immediately changed his mind. "Actually I think I'm too busy with school." Then he gave Lenalee an honestly apologizing gaze. "I'm sorry Lenalee. It's just... I just have a lot of studying to do. I guess my afternoon will be just me sitting on my bed and writing essay on my laptop."

Suddenly a familiar, desperate voice called behind his back. "Can I tag along? I'm sure you could use a little help."

Allen's warm and peaceful smile got tense and cold and he quickly turned around to face Lavi. "I don't think I need your help."

"I understand but please..."

"I'm in a hurry now so I don't have time for an unimportant things, sorry. Bye."

Lavi looked seriously tired as he watched hopelessly Allen running past him and disappearing behind the corner.

Lenalee was not really surprised by this and her voice was dull. "You going after him again?"

Lavi shrugged and kept desperately staring after the boy. "I have to, he's still mad at me. I can't give up on this. Lenalee what should I do?"

The Chinese girl stood up and let out a sarcastic laugh which wasn't like her at all. "Well maybe if a one person here would let me know what is going on I'd be able to help better!" Then she rushed off leaving Lavi to stand on the hallway alone.

"Lenalee not you too!" the redhead cried after her. "I can't have everybody in this damn place to be mad at me!"

***

The raindrops gently danced against the window while Allen lied on the bed on his side and stared intensely at the wall like it would transform into something much more interesting if he gazed it long enough. Too bad for him, it didn't. It was still a white boring wall that didn't distract him from thinking of Lavi.

"Don't think about him..." his tired voice breathed out. "You don't have to suffer like this."

The regret of allowing himself to have a crush on the redhead sneaked into his mind and it hurt like hell. And that pain was not easy to ignore. The pain found him when he tried to sleep and when he didn't have anything to do. It was lurking behind all the corners and sometimes when Allen closed his eyes trying to ease it and tell himself that if he wouldn't think of the pain it would go away but that made it even worse.

Still... the most painful thing to him was seeing Lavi at the school. Seeing his annoyingly bright smile and his gentle glowing green eye.

Allen knew Lavi wanted to apologize. He knew that very well. But letting Lavi apologize to him meant facing Lavi and talking with him and Allen was not ready for that. He knew for a fact that everytime he saw the redhead he wanted nothing more than to close his arms around him and cry his eyes out while begging Lavi would take him back - and that he coulnd't let it happen.

So he had decided to run away from Lavi for the rest of his life. Like that would be possible.

"I am so stupid" Allen snapped at himself and reached to open his laptop.

_I should be doing something useful so why not actually to do some schoolwork?_

When the screen turned bright and he lifted the machine on his lap -  _bling!_  - a message popped up on the screen.

_What is that? A message?_

Suddenly the room got really cold and silent. Allen didn't have his lights on, and the only thing he could see at the moment was blinking text message window, begging him to open it. But the young boy strangely felt that he shouldn't do it. It was like he knew it was something bad. Like... something really bad from his life before he moved to this town and started to go to this school.

But - for an unknown reason - he clicked it open.

**HI ALLEN! ^_~ *heart***

The message was written in a way that got cold sweat running down Allen's back. He had a bad feeling about this. A very bad horrifying feeling.

He put his pale fingers at the keyboard and let them run trough it.

**_Who is this?_ **

_Bling!_ Another message immediately popped up.

**Oh Allen, you know who dis is ^o^ We are friends, rememberrrr? ~**

_No... No no no no no._

_**I'm sorry but I don't think I know you. Please leave me alone.** _

_Bling!_

**Allennn! Don't be rude QAQ I finally got your information and now you behave like that. But it's okay, you're forgiven! ^-^ I still love you ~ *heart***

The white haired boy felt his heart skip a beat and he felt a huge need to scream his lungs out. He knew who this was. And he was in a serious trouble.

_**...** _

_**Is this Road?** _

_Bling!_

**YUP! ^-^**

Allen pushed the laptop out of his lap and kicked it on the floor like it was evil. His eyes widened and his breathing started to accelerate while the messages still kept popping on his screen.

_Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling!_

**I wanna play with you again**

**I wanna play with you again**

**I wanna play with you again**

**I wanna play with you again**

Allen covered his ears with the shaking hands. "Stop.." He crawled to the corner of his bed and kept staring horrified at the screen. "Stop.."

_Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling!_

"Stop it."

_Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling!_

"STOP IT!"

***

"Please Kanda" Lenalee asked with her puppy eyes. "Just this one time, please?"

"No."

"Kanda pleaaaaseeee."

"No."

"But-"

"Jesus woman, I said no. I am not going to ask if that Moyashi would be  _oh so nice_  and make up with that idiot Lavi."

"You don't have to ask him to make up with Lavi, you just have to force him to speak with him. I don't wanna go alone and he doesn't listen a word I say." Then Lenalee kept a little pause and continued with a apologizing voice. "...and besides you are so stubborn that he has to say yes sooner or later if you pressure him enough."

"I am not stubborn!"

"Yeah, Kanda, you are."

"Che."

The Chinese girl pursed up her lower lip. "Please? Just this once. We have to get Allen out of his room. He really needs to hear Lavi out. Please? Please?"

Kanda had a hard time trying to say 'no' while looking at Lenalee's big bright begging eyes. " _Oh for fucks sake.._ "

When Lenalee had succesfully dragged Kanda with her and they stood in front of Allen's door she gave him and 'okay you ready?' look and knocked politely. "Allen? You there?"

No answer.

"Allen?"

"I hope he's dead."

Lenalee stroked Kanda's arm angrily. "Don't you dare to say that." Then she knocked the door again and tried with a happy chirping voice. "Allen? It's me, Lenalee."

No answer.

"Should we... should we go in?" the girl asked giving her friend a interrogative look. "I mean it's just weird he wouldn't answer."

Kanda shrugged. "Maybe Moyashi is not in his room at all."

"But he said he would be. Let's take a look."

When she touched the door it opened slowly and unexpectedly. Usually people in the dorm kept their doors locked and it was very suspicious that someone like Allen would be an exception. Lenalee placed her fingers lightly on the door and carefully pushed it open.

"Hello? Allen?" she asked with a small voice. When she once again did not receive an answer she stepped in Kanda following right after.

Eyeing the darkness Kanda let out a snort. "I can't see much in this light but it seems this little fucker has a room twice as big as mine."

The room was dark and dead silent and the only visible light was screen of a laptop. Lenalee slowly stepped towards it and carefully got down on her knees to investigate it. The chat window was left open and it was full of text. But not any real conversation, just the text 'I wanna play with you again' over and over again as far as Lenalee could browse.

She hesitated for a short moment but soon let her hands to touch the keyboard.

"Who - is - this?" she read out loud while typing. "Do - you - know - Allen?"

_Bling!_

**I am playing with Allen. You won't see him again.**

"Kanda I'm scared" Lenalee whispered and covered her mouth with her hand.

Kanda had finally found the light switch and slapped it right on. When the brightness filled the room they realized the room was a total mess. There was shattered glass on the floor alongside of pills and books and the bed was grubbed and the sheets were on the floor. It was like there has been a fight scene a little while ago.

"What in the name of fuck happened here?" Kanda's usually so calm voice had strange tone. "Where the hell is Moyashi?"

"He is gone" Lenalee whispered. "Somebody took him away." She turned around and standing up run to Kanda. "What do we do now? Should we call to my big brother?"

"No, he is as helpful as a pile of empty boxes."

Lavi's familiar voice called from the door. He had apparently come to see Allen and now stood on the doorway looking very confused. "Oh, hi guys. What are you doing here? What's going on?"

Lenalee turned around quickly and she was holding tears. "We can't find Allen.."

The redhead run to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "What? What do you mean you can't find him? And why is his room in this condition?"

She reached her shaking hand and pointed to the laptop. "Somebody took Allen away. He is not here anymore."

"Well we have to go and find him then!" Lavi stated confidently.

Kanda snorted. "I'm going home."

Lenalee grabbed strongly his arm and gave him a furious look. "Allen is our friend. And you are going to help us to find him."

Kanda opened his mouth to protest but quickly shut it up again and turned his gaze away. If there was something - anything - in this god damn world he couldn't do it was to say 'no' to Lenalee.

"Fine."

"Good." Lenalee lose her grip. "So.. what do we do now..?"

"I'm going outside to see if there is any sight of him" Lavi stated with a rough voice. "...or where he might be."

And with that he run out.

The weather was more stormy than it looked from the inside and the wind blew so strongly it was hard to walk straight. Raindrops hit Lavi's eye as he tried desperately to see anything in this weather and all the noise outside made his loud voice calling for Allen sounded weak and distant. His red hair had already become wet and his wet clothes started to feel too uncomfortable to wear, but he had no intention to go inside and stop running around looking for his friend.

After a short while that felt like forever he felt his pocket vibrate.

_Maybe it's Allen!_

But as expected, it was not Allen. It was Tyki.

Without any hesitation Lavi answered and before Tyki had a change to say a thing he suddenly heard his own voice almost yell.

"Tyki  _where is Allen_ _?!_ "


	8. Red and white

Lavi was not the kind of person who got mad for nothing. No, not at all. He was very kind, outgoing and understanding. He always tried to think rationally before blaming anyone. He liked to stay calm and think things from positive perspective. And he usually had a very, very long temper.

Usually.

If, however, the situation involved his new adorable friend who just went missing and a person who most likely knew where this friend was. His temper seemed to get a lot shorter in a matter of seconds.

So when Lavi saw Tyki's name in his phone's screen he didn't waste any time hesitating should he answer or not.

"Tyki  _where's Allen?!_ " he heard his own voice almost yell.

As usual Tyki's voice was dangerously sweet and he spoke calm like there would be absolutely nothing going on. " _Oh,_ " his sweet voice chuckled. " _Are you looking for him_?"

"Of course I am!" Lavi responsed still yelling. "Why in the earth I would ask you otherwise?"

" _Don't worry, he's in a safe place_."

Lavi was not in a mood for playing games. "I  _know_  you know where he is." He stated and finally calmed his voice. "You tell me right now or-"

" _Or what_ _?_ " the sweet voice purred softly. " _You_   _make me? My my, you've become quite heroic these days_."

"Shut up."

Tyki laughed. " _If I shut up I can't tell you_."

"You know what I meant." Lavi replied trying to keep his voice calm. "Tell me where Allen is and I promise I'll so you just how heroic I can be."

" _Is that so?_ " Tyki's voice suddenly became dry and uninterested.

"...yes."

" _I admire how interested you are of saving Allen, but don't you know an awfully lot of people have died trying to play a hero?_ "

The redhead got very quiet. He wanted to know where Allen was. He really did. But was he really going to play a hero and risk his life to get him back? Was Allen really worth that much?

_He didn't even know if Allen was that important to him._

After a tense pause the older man spoke again. " _We are just refreshing some good old memories._ "

Lavi winced. "...which means?"

" _We used to be so close back in his junior high school times_."

And then the call was cut off.

Standing all wet and cold on the yard Lavi stared blankly in the rain and let his arm fall on his side. His mouth felt dry and he wasn't sure what to do. Of course he wanted to save Allen but... if it was as dangerous as Tyki claimed it to be would he really be willing to risk his health to save the boy? And if he decided he would, Lenalee would surely insist to come along. And if it was dangerous he couldn't just let Lenalee throw herself into it, right?

"Right?" Lavi asked himself.

But then again...

Allen would probably risk his life for him.

And, Lavi decided, that was enough. So he ran back inside.

After a very quick and confusing conversation with Lenalee (and very unwilling Kanda) Lavi had gotten them to help him to find Allen. He wasn't sure where the boy was, but he had an idea.

"You see," Lavi explained picking a lock of the Headmaster's office "they were friends when Allen was in junior high."

"Mm hmm?" Lenalee nodded while viewing the hallway making sure nobody was coming.

"So, you see, I figured they probably took Allen to his old school or dorm. If there was a dorm, I mean."

"Aha" was the absent answer.

"Soooo," Lavi explained as the lock made a satisfying 'click' noise "We just have to take a quick peek on Allen's information and - BADAM - we get to know where he used to go to school!"

The redhead pushed the door open carefully but complacent look on his face. Then he bowed and made room for his friend. "Ladies first."

It wasn't really hard to find Allen's information - the only problem was that Komui's office was so messy they had to figure out where the map holding all of the student's information was. After a short but frustrating moment Lavi held the map in his hands.

"So.." he slowly stated "You  _sure_ you wanna do this?"

Lenalee shrugged. "Yeah. And besides, this was your idea."

"Oh. Yeah. Here we go then!"

The redhead barely took a look on the names on the papers and just as fast as that he picked one of the latest. There was a familiar name written in it (A. Walker) and under it a writing on a red:  _special room for one person._

Lavi new he should only check Allen's former school, but he was a way too curious to read this tempting white paper full of information. This little piece of paper that contained so much information he wanted to know.

_Well, it can't hurt to look._

After Allen's name there where usual information about his high and weight and so on, and then his former school and the dorm he used to live in. It was noted that the dorm was in a bad condition and was no longer in use.

"That's where they probably took him" he heard Lenalee mumble behind him. But Lavi was a way too interested to keep on reading, he couldn't possibly leave with so little information: a school and a abandoned dorm.

After the school and the dorm there where the names of his guardians: Mana Walker (deceased) and later on Cross Marian.

Next, after the guardians, there was an space where the Headmaster could write special information about the student. The space was usually kept empty, but there were some cases when teachers wanted to write down some important info just to remember it later (for example, in Kanda's paper there was probably something about the incident which caused him to move away from the dorm).

However, in Allen's paper there was only a short sentence and it was highlighted:  _Allowed to have a private room due to the massive physical damage on his body._

Lavi was staring the sentence so intensely that he totally forgot what he was doing. Suddenly he realized Lenalee was twitching his sleeve an calling out his name.

"Lavi! Answer me!"

"Hm? Sorry, did you say something?"

The girl let out a sigh. "Oh for the love of... I was asking you what are you staring at."

Not letting Lenalee see the paper Lavi put it right back in the map and grabbed her hand. "Yeah, nothing important. We should go."

***

After Lavi had rejected him, Allen had almost forgot what physical pain was since he was so focused on the emotional one. But now he remembered. There was nothing like this pain. Nothing.

The boy lied on the cold floor and his whole body was shaking and beaten up and bleeding from numerous cuts. His throat was sore of all the painful screaming and it was hard to see clearly from the tears, but he couldn't get his eyes away from the girl sitting in front of him. The girl was holding a knife and waving it playfully while giving the white haired boy a adorable smile.

"Don't look so terrified, Allen" she commented his panicked look. "You knew that I would find you and play with you again."

Allen couldn't get a sound out of his mouth. The pain and fighting against his holders had completely taken all the power that was left on his body and all he could do was to lie on his side and wait frightened if Road was gonna make another cut on his body.

The door opened and another person stepped in. "He still refuses to talk?" he asked. It was Tyki.

Road kept smiling. "Yeah. I don't think he really wants to hang out with us anymore."

"That's a shame" Tyki commented disintrested. "I thought it would be so fun. But" he laid his eyes on the person lying on the floor and painted a cruel smile on his face "maybe it's because he has such great  _new_ friends."

Allen winched.

"I called Lavi to tell him that I was not gonna bother him anymore, but apparently he already knew it was us who picked Allen up." His smile got even darker as he kept speaking. "I think he is going to - how did I say it? - play a hero and come running to rescue you."

Shrugging her shoulders Road got up and kissed Allen's forehead while placing her hand on his bleeding wound. "But we don't care about them, right? We are going to keep playing all day long for the rest of our lives."

The tall man turned on his heels and waved his hand. "Yes. Besides it's very unlikely he will ever find us."

Road giggled and painfully stamped on Allen's arm.

***

"Are you absolutely sure this is the place?" Lenalee asked and viewed the huge building before the three teenagers.

Lavi gave her a dull look. "If you know any  _other_  abandoned dorms in this area then go ahead and tell me."

"Fine, fine. I was just checking because..."

"Because no person with a right mind would want to go in" Kanda cut her off. Lavi and Lenalee turned to look at him and they both had a same critical expression.

"Kanda..." Lenalee started.

"What? I'm only saying what is obvious. None of us wants to go in and I'm only here because you insisted. I have no interest of saving that stupid Moyashi whatsoever."

"Kanda!"

"I don't give a fuck if he dies."

Lavi looked like he was just about to attack Kanda, but Lenalee grabbed his arm and shook her head. "Leave him be. He is not gonna change his mind and we have better things to do than stand out here fighting."

"Uh... yeah."

"Okay. Now, let's go in. There is a broken window with very little shattered glass so we can use that as an entrance."

The redhead lifted his friend easily up and then jumped right after her. After a minute when they both were safely inside Lenalee's face popped out of the window.

"Kanda?" she asked with a gentle voice. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us?"

Kanda snorted and left her without and actual answer, but that was as good as 'yes'. The Chinese girl sighed and disappeared in the darkness.

The dorm was basically just a one hallway after another walls full of doors leading to the rooms where the students used to live. The place had very little windows and it was almost as dark as in the night.

"Shit!" Lavi cursed when he accidentally kicked a metallic piece that made an creepy echo. "I wish we took a flashlight with us.."

Lenalee opened a broken door and peeked inside the room behind it. "This place is like directly from some terrifying horror movie. But no sign of Allen anywhere so far."

Lavi in turn pushed a door open and examined an empty room. "Maybe he is in one of the rooms that are locked?"

"I don't think so. That means whoever took him there would have the key and that's not very likely."

"I guess you're right..." Lavi closed the door and was just about to push another one open when he heard a sound. It was the sound of footsteps.

"Lena" he whispered. "You hear that?"

But Lenalee didn't answer. The cold sweat ran down Lavi's back when he tried to call the girl. "Lenalee? Lena, answer me! This is not funny."

He tried to focus his eyes on the darkness. At first he thought what he saw was only his imagination, but when his vision got better he recognized a dark silhouette of a person.

_That's definitely not Lenalee._

It didn't matter how much his brain told him to run away, he was completely unable to move his legs in any direction. He watched as the person in the darkness took a step closer. It seemed like he wasn't sure if he should reveal himself or not.

In the worst possible timing, the door right next to the mysterious person opened and Lenalee stepped out.

"Lavi, did you call me a little while a-"

She never finished her sentence since the person quickly caught her and grabbed her throat so she could barely breath.

"LENALEE!"

The person sighed with a too familiar voice. "I see you're still playing a hero even after I so kindly warned you before."

Lavi's expression instantly got angered and he took a threatening step forward. "Tyki, let Lenalee go or-"

"Your puny threats don't work on me." Tyki smiled and took a few steps forward too. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave. We can't give Allen up just yet."

Lavi was going to step forward again, but stopped right on the place when Tyki tightened his grip on Lenalee's throat.

__Oh shit..._  _He cursed standing helplessly on the place keeping an eye on the tall man.  _I can't do anything. If I stay here then god know what happens to Allen, but if I move Lenalee will hurt..._

"Can I ask you a question?" he looked directly at Tyki and tried to look calm when he actually felt really panicked.

"Hm?"

"Why are you doing this? How do you know Allen?"

The tanned man sneered and his smile got nasty. "If you really must know, we were friends a couple of years ago, but for some reason Allen decided to end our friendship and we got kinda mad about that... Anyway, Road thought it would be nice to hang out with him again. We are doing this only because... well.. mostly because Road likes him. _I'm_  doing this because it's fun."

"Aw man" Lavi moaned pitifully, "You must be really off your mind. No one in their right sense would do anything like that just because they think it's fun."

Suddenly a painfull scream that was so loud and high pitched broke the conversation and got goose bumps on Lavi's back and he immediately turned his head to the direction the scream came from. "That was Allen!"

Lenalee made a voice that sounded like she was just about to choke to the death and the redhead turned to face Tyki.

"If you leave I'm afraid I'll have to end the girl."

_Oh my fucking god, this can't be happening right now!_

Just when Lavi thought he would have to fight Tyki in order to get out of there and save Allen, things started to happen. And they happened in a blink of an eye.

Tyki turned around with dispatch when he heard footsteps coming running towards him and saw Kanda.

When his grip loosened Lenalee bit him on the finger and he turned his attention right back to the girl.

Kanda jumped on the air behind Tyki and directed a powerful kick on the man's neck.

Tyki fell down on the ground and Lenalee escaped from his grip and faltered to Kanda who closed his arms around her to keep her standing on her feet.

Then he turned to Lavi who stood in his place staring at the other.

"Why" the long haired boy growled with an irascible voice, "did I  _ever_  think you could handle a one tiny rescue by yourself."

Lavi chuckled awkwardly. "Eh heh heh.. Because... you secretly trust in me..?"

"No, it's because I had a short moment when I didn't remember you are an idiot."

"Oh."

"I'm going to fucking kill you for making me come in here and save your pathetic ass you fucking piece of-"

His threat was cut off with the most blood-curdling scream of pain that once again echoed trough the hallway. Lavi did not think twice whether he should follow the voice or not, he sprinted behind the corner in a millisecond.

When he reached the door at the end of the hallway and pushed it open he immediately froze on the place.

There, right in front of his eye, was Allen. Lying on the floor like a broken doll, shirt stained with blood and painful looking cuts covering his skinny figure.

"Doesn't he look pretty?" the girl sitting next to him asked with a cheerful voice. "The red color really suits him. Look how beautiful it makes his pale skin look. And his lips. He should be always wearing such a beautiful color."

When she didn't receive an answers she lifted her gaze and stared Lavi directly at the eye. "Where's Tyki?"

"He's unconscious." The redhead took a warning step forward. "Get away from Allen."

Road shrugged and stood up like nothing was wrong. "Fine. I ques I have to go and help Tyki then." She strolled past Lavi and stopped for a minute when she was just about to leave the room. "I'll let you go just this once. I'm not sure if we'll ever meet again but if there comes a day we do, I will not be this merciful."

"Don't worry," Lavi stated without looking behind him. "Me neither."

_Giggle_. "I can see why Tyki and Allen both like you. You're funny" girl's sweet voice laughed. "You can keep Allen for now, he stopped being funny about an hour ago and I'm very bored anyway."

Lavi opened his mouth and turned around to speak, but the girl was already gone.

_Allen._

He rushed next to the boy and lifted his upper body on his arms. "Allen? Hey! Dude, answer me!"

The younger boy difficulty opened his eyelids and focused his fuzzy eyes on the redhead. "...L..vi..."

"Are you okay?" Lavi explaimed worried. "Does it hurt? Why am I even asking of course it hurts!"

"...wher...is..?"

"It's okay, Tyki and the girl are gone."

"Why...re...you...here?"

It was painful to see Allen in this condition. It looked like in was pain for him to speak and he looked so tired and little and weak and Lavi felt a sudden huge urge to embrace the boy.

He didn't do it though. He was too afraid it would just hurt the boy more. All he did was gently touch his cheek and smile calmly. "I'm here to take you back home."

Allen gave him a weak smile. "Th...at... sounds good."

"...Allen?"

"...y...es?"

"You don't have to answer me if you can't or don't want to... but what actually is your relationship with Tyki? I know you want to keep your secrets and you probably don't want to talk about this now, but this is a big mess I don't quite understand and I already got involved... so.."

For a moment there was a hesitation in the Allen's face. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

"I... was young and... I just accidentally met them after school... one day. They seemed... nice and cool but... pretty soon I realized they did... bad things..."

Lavi examined Allen's face with a somber expression. "...what kind of bad things?"

"Bad things like... hurting... people and stealing... and all... that kind of stuff. I got... a little involved to that... even though... I didn't want to. I just... didn't want to do it anymore and... and..." He inhaled painfully breath quivering. "I guess... they got pretty mad about me... wanting to end our... so called friendship. So Road one day... called me and asked me... to... come play with her and... well... things like this" he waved his hand over his cut body "happened back then too. I was in a pretty bad shape... after she was finished... with me. I only got away because... I locked myself in the bathroom... and she got bored."

His body shivering in anger and disgust, Lavi closed his arms around Allen and hid his face on the other's blood stained hair. "...I'm sorry.."

Allen was not sure how to respond to that sudden act of affection and he wasn't quite aware if it was real or not. Everything seemed so blurry and he felt tired and sleepy and surprisingly warm.

_Am I dreaming this?_  Allen frowned confused. _Yeah, that must be it. I'm having a nice dream about Lavi, he is holding me. It was all probably just a horrible nightmare that luckily turned into a good dream... I don't know why I would dream about this place, but Lavi is here and he is hugging me so I won't complain._

"Allen!" Lavi yelled, shaking the boy softly. "Allen, don't fall asleep!"

But Allen did not open his eyes. He wanted to drown deep into the nice dream he thought he was having and he had no intention on waking up.

"Lavi!" Lenalee rushed into the room looking as worried as ever and right after her Kanda ran in.

"Is Moyashi okay?" he asked with a voice that came out more worried than he meant. "I mean. Uh. He's covered in blood and all."

_Oh. Kanda is in this dream too? Man, this is some really weird dream. Why does he sound so worried? And is that... Lenalee? Is she crying? Why? And I thought I was finally having a nice dream and all.._

"We should take him to the hospital!" Lenalee cried and grabbed her phone.

"Fuck no we're not! I hate those places!" Kanda responded.

Lavi turned angrily at Kanda. "This is not up to you, Yuu. It doesn't matter how much you dislike hospitals, we are taking Allen there."

_Hospital? No no no. No. No! I don't want to go the hospital!_

"We can take him to Tiedoll, he knows how to treat those wounds!"

"No. We are taking him to the hospital. And besides why does know how to treat that kind of wounds? Aren't these kinda bad?"

Kanda snorted. "Oh _please_. You think he managed to play my parent without having to constantly be prepared for cuts like that? I have had a katana since I was like 9 for Christ's sake."

"Oh. I think we should take him to the hospital anyway."

Allen raised his hand and grabbed Lavi's shirt. "Please... I don't... no hospitals..."

"Ha!" Kanda exclaimed with a way too victorious tone. "Moyashi doesn't want to go to the hospital!"

He received a dark gaze from the redhead. "Fine. But if he can't  _properly_  treat Allen's wounds I'm gonna kill you and we're gonna take him to the hospital whether he liked it or not."

Turned out that Tiedoll actually could treat the wounds properly. He was very careful with the boy and after the confusing phone call about where they were and what happened Tiedoll had picked them up and bounded up the wounds and put Allen in his bed to rest.

The two teenagers sat on the table drinking hot chocolate, all except Kanda because ' _that stuff is for the babies_ ', and Tiedoll was making a soup for them. Lavi was with Allen and even when his friends had tried to convince him that Allen was gonna be okay he would not leave his side.

"Thank you for not telling the police or calling to the hospital" Lenalee thanked Tiedoll and eyed her drink tired. "We don't think Allen would want that, he doesn't seemed to like authorities too much.."

Tiedoll gave her a warm smile and kept doing his stuff. "That's okay dear. I know very well how to keep a secret and I think you three are old enough to decide what is the best thing to do in this kind of situation."

"I highly doubt that" the Chinese girl laughed joylessly.

"Well, it's only my pleasure to be a trustful but responsible adult. And I just want to help my dear Yuu out when he's in trouble."

Kanda murmured protesting his nicknames and Lenalee smiled. "I think you might spoil him a bit, Tiedoll."

"I might be, but he  _is_  my sweet child after all."

***

Lavi sat on the chair and did not move his gaze of off Allen. He knew it wasn't his fault that Allen was in this condition, but he still blamed himself for that. It was clear that if he hadn't made Allen so upset he might have not been so much alone and they might have not taken him away.

He reached out his hand and touched the boy's face lightly. He just sat there, petting the other's washed, white hair and watched him breath calmly.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Over and over again.

Lavi knew it was stupid but he was afraid that if he didn't look Allen might stop breathing.

"Allen..." he slowly spoke with a dry and rough voice. "I... I don't know what to say to make this better." He felt his heart ache while watching the other's resting face. It hadn't ached such a way in a long time.

"For... everything I did... and all that pain I caused to you... I'm sorry. " His voice was not louder than a whisper and he had to fight the tears that wanted to slip out of his eyes. "I'm so sorry Allen" he stated quietly. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."

A pale hand touched his face weakly and when Lavi opened his eyes he looked right into Allen's.

The younger boy smiled kindly. "It's okay Lavi. I forgive you."

It took a moment for Lavi to process the situation."You... you heard what I just said? All of it?"

"...Pretty much."

"N-n-not cool man!" Lavi stuttered face as burning red as his hair. "I thought you were asleep."

Allen flashed him an innocently devilish smile. "I know. I just wanted to hear your voice."

Lavi's jaw dropped open. "...you sneaky little bastard."

The white haired teen sneered happily. "Not as much a bastard as you are though."

"Yeah... sorry about that..." the redhead mumbled and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I honestly feel like shit you know."

As much as Allen wanted to close his arms around Lavi and kiss him, he knew it would be stupid and reckless. If Lavi didn't like him then there was nothing he could do about it. He wanted to be with Lavi, but for now it was okay just to stay friends with him.

"It's okay" he smiled kindly. "I may have overreacted a bit myself."

"No, it's was totally right to react that way and besides-"

"I don't even know if I even like you that way" he let the lies escape his lips. "I think I was just a little lost with my feelings."

"Oh" was all that the redhead got out of his mouth.

"Yeah, so... what do you say? We are still friends, right?"

Lavi let a shy and apologizing smile cover his lips. "If that's okay with you."

"Yeah. That's very much okay with me." Allen smiled back.

Lavi leaned closer to him and for a moment Allen thought he was gonna kiss him. But he didn't. He just closed his arms around him and hugged him as tightly as Allen's wounds let him.

_It's okay_ , Allen thought and hugged him back with one arm.  _It's okay. I don't need him to like me the way I like him. I just need to be able to be close to him like this._

_It's okay_ , Lavi thought and tightened his grip when he felt Allen's hand touch his back.  _It's okay. I will protect you from everything you're afraid of. I will never hurt you again. I will make sure nobody hurts you again._

Just when Allen thought he would like to stay like this forever Kanda rudely interrupted their tender moment and stepped in. "Oi, Lavi? Are you ever planning to tell Moyashi that you and Tyki- oh." He stared at Allen who stared back irritated of this interference. "Oh. He's awake."

"Yes, and I am okay. Thank you for asking."

"Fine" Kanda snorted and turned around to leave. "I tell Lena that you're awake and-"

"Wait" Allen stopped him. "What was it that you wanted to ask Lavi?"

Lavi quickly pushed Allen back on his back and threw the blanket on him. "Nothing! Yuu wanted to ask me nothing, haha. Now you just go back to sleep and we'll let you rest."

"No! I want to hear what it was!" Allen protested under the blanked Lavi was holding over his head. "It was something about Tyki! Kanda tell me!"

Lavi gave Kanda a  _don't-you-dare_ _kind_  of look, but Kanda had already opened his mouth.

"I was just gonna ask him if he is ever going to tell you that he used to date Tyki a few years ago."

Allen's figure under the blanked froze on the place.

Lavi froze on the place.

Kanda stared at the two of them.

It was a great while of awkward silence until the blanket spoke again. "You've got to be kidding me."


	9. All is fair in love and war

Nothing is worse than thinking you know someone and then realizing you actually know nothing of them.

Like, you know, when you realize they used to date the person who abused you and basically ruined your life.

Allen, still sitting quietly inside the blanket, felt very shocked, disappointed and pissed.

"So" the blanket spoke and turned his face (or the spot where his face probably was) to Lavi. "You and... Tyki?  _Really? Tyki from all the people?_ "

Lavi stepped awkwardly away from Allen and scratched his neck nervously. "Well, yeah... I kinda used to date him when I was younger or something..."

Allen threw the blanket away and stepped angrily up just to fall down on the floor in pain when all the wounds in his body gave him a stinging warning. Lavi hurried to help him, but the other slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch me."

Lavi let out a frustrated sigh. "Allen, you are in pain and you can't get off the floor by yourself. Let me help you."

The other just iturned his gaze away. "I'm not sure if I want help from the person who dates violent and evil guys."

"It was when I was younger! I knew nothing about that stuff you just told me!" Lavi yelled and then calmed down and got down on his knees to be on the Allen's level. "Look, I don't want you to be mad at me anymore. I don't understand why, but I'll gladly tell you everything you want to know. I'm sorry."'

As a reward for his apology he got a cold stare.

"If it's something you can just tell that easily then why the heck you didn't just tell me in the first place?" Allen blamed with a shrill voice. "I mean. You  _knew_  hat Tyki and I knew each other! That's why you asked me if I know him before you... you... before you rejected.. me." His voice almost completely disappeared.

"Allen..." Lavi tried and touched lightly the other's shoulder only to have his hand slapped away again.

"Why do you keep secrets and lie so much? Do you l _ike_ to hurt other people?!"

It was Lavi's turn to get angry. "Hey! The first of all I'm not lying! It's not lying when you're not telling something you didn't know you should tell! I simply didn't tell you because I didn't think it was a big deal - which I now know it is! And the second of all  _you_  are the one keeping secrets! You didn't even tell me that you have a room of your own because your body is so cut and damaged and you didn't even tell me that your former guardian is dead!"

Allen gasped in hurt and anger and tried to stand up again. "That" he hissed with a dangerous voice "is none of your business. Why would I have told you something like that?"

"Well you-"

"Why would I tell that kind of things to anybody?! Oh I know, the next time I will introduce myself to a new group of people I'll simply just say ' _hi my name is Allen Walker and I used to have friends who cut my body and abused me and I have to take pills sometimes so I can sleep and oh by the way I was also abandoned as a baby and then I h_ _ad an adoptive father wh_ _o picked me up from the streets but then he died and I w_ _as in the streets a_ _gain and now my guardian is an alcoholic womanizer who makes me pay his debt and my first love used me for sex and I_ _'m a fifte_ _en years old!_ ' THAT WOULD BE GREAT TO TELL RIGHT AWAY WOULDN'T IT?" Allen laughed sarcastically and so loud that it was almost like he just went insane.

Lavi stepped forward and pulled Allen closer to him and when the younger boy tried to push him away he tightly closed his arms around him so he wouldn't get away.

"Okay okay fine!" he yelled and felt the other stop struggling. "Okay! Allen. I'm sorry. I apologize. I had no right to read your information and I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Tyki and I."

Allen was death silent. The redhead was not sure if it was because he was listening or because he was moping so he kept going. "I'm seriously sorry about that. It's just that when I dated him I was about your age and that was a few years ago and I really really  _really_  didn't think it was important. But now I see it is. And I'm sorry."

"..."

"Allen please forgive me. It's not for my sake, but yours. I don't want to fight with you and I don't want you to be mad at me for stupid reasons. It's not good for you and it's not good for me either. I promise that I wont keep any secrets anymore."

"Fine."

"Except my eye, that is a one no-no I will never tell you. Never. Even if I'd marry you someday."

"..."

"Sorry. No teasing, no flirting, no sex. Just best friends. Right? Friends? Pals?"

Allen let out a sigh. "I guess I'll forgive you. And, uh.." he gently pushed away from Lavi and gave him an apologizing glance. "I'm sorry for yelling at you too. It's not all your fault and I think that maybe I'm just a little... sensitive."

"Hey man, that's okay!" the redhead grinned and patted his head softly. "It's totally okay to be sensitive and stuff."

"Okay so... I won't keep secrets anymore, you won't keep secrets anymore?"

"That's a deal! ~"

Allen sat down on the bed and blinked when he suddenly remembered that he was not alone with Lavi. Kanda was there too. Or rather he had been there, since there was no sign of him in the room anymore.

"...When did Kanda leave?"

Lavi glanced at the door. "Probably when we we're both yelling. But that's just what he's like. He doesn't really care about other people."

"Oh."

***

The next week passed by really nicely and after the few first days of expecting Tyki to pop up behind every corner the four of them had put the incident behind them and things were finally peaceful. Allen's wounds became better and he was able to go to school again and the most importantly Lavi and him were in good terms again. After the incident they had started to hang out more which Allen found to be great. Lavi was funny and easy to be around and he actually had started to be careful with Allen and had completely stopped the flirting with him. The only problem in this new blooming friendship was that Allen - as much as he denied it - was still slowly and dangerously falling in love with the redhead. Lavi of course didn't even notice, or he just acted like he didn't.

It was a real problem almost every time Allen noticed a pretty girl flirting with Lavi or when Lavi spoke about other people he used to date. He got a huge jealous pinch in his heart and even if he did his best to act like it didn't bother him, he usually ended up crying in the bathroom and blaming himself for being so hopeless and touchy.

However, if Lavi was too carefree to notice this, it didn't mean Lenalee and Kanda were.

Kanda was lying on Lenalee's bed, staring for a ceiling frowning. Lenalee in turn sat next to him and polished her toenails.

"I don't understand why it's so damn hard for Lavi just to admit that he likes Allen" a pissed voice murmured beside her.

"That's just the way Lavi is."

"Che."

Lenalee giggled gently. "But they are doing a way better now, aren't they?"

"That's not enough."

"Hmm?" the girl smiled and climbed to sit on Kanda's stomach. "I thought you didn't care about them?"

Kanda snorted. "Please don't do that. I'm not a pillow." When Lenalee didn't show any signs of moving off, he simply sighed. "Don't get me wrong. I couldn't care less about Lavi's relationship business."

"Soooo... you care about Allen then?" The Chinese girl suggested.

" _Nnnooo?_  I just hate it when they don't get their shit together and everyone else  _like me_ _i_ s forced to deal with that crap."

Laughing adorably Lenalee patted Kanda's cheek. "You are such a bad liar Kanda!"

"The fuck I am. Besides what are you even doing, jumping on my stomach like that? Wouldn't Komui kill you if he knew you'd doing such a thing?"

The girl shook her head. "No, he would rather kill you."

"It would be adorable to see him try."

Giggle. "Heh heh! It really would." Then she got of off his stomach and focused on her toenails again. "But it's not like we are actually dating or anything, so there is no worrying about that."

Kanda's face became serious. "Yeah."  _It's not like we are actually dating or anything._  "Would you have a problem if we were?"

"Hm?" Lenalee focused her attention back in Kanda. "What did you say?"

"Nothing."

"Oh okay."

"Lavi likes Allen." Kanda stated again. "I just don't understand why he's playing like that when he _clearly likes him_!"

Lenalee shrugged and just 'mmm mm'ed as an answer.

"He likes Allen and I know it."

"Yeah," Lenalee answered and tilted her head. "But what can we do? It's not like Lavi would listen to us if we just went over him and told him 'hey, you like Allen'."

"Shit I know that! It's just... What if somebody else takes Allen before Lavi realizes his feelings? Allen is probably the only person he has cared like that in a long time. He could stop running after women and fucking around if he would just admit that he likes Allen."

"Too bad he doesn't" the girl sighed.

But Kanda puckered his eyebrows. "But he will."

***

Allen slapped the cards on the table and looked at Lavi victoriously. "I win - again."

"You are fucking cheating... I know you are..." Lavi murmured watching the cards incredulously.

"Prrrrrrrove it" Allen smiled devilishly.

"I can't and  _you know it!_ " Lavi yelled and threw his cards away. "Aaaaaarght let's just do something else!"

Allen laughed and watched his friend warmly. "Okay. So... what do you wanna do?"

"Read."

"Hey!" the boy slapped Lavi's arm gently. "You have plenty of time to read when you go home. When you're with me you have to do something that I can do too."

Lavi stood up and sat on the bed. "We could go to hand out at the mall?"

"Lavi... that's something teenagers do."

"So? It's not like we are adults yet. And besides you, sir, are still technically a teenager."

"Shut up" Allen laughed and sat next to the redhead. "If you like, we could always watch a movie or two. I'm sure Lenalee will borrow us some if we ask nicely."

While Allen kept talking, Lavi viewed him carefully. These few last days Allen had been on really good mood and just watching him smile like that made the redhead so happy he had to really fight his will to kiss the younger boy.

"Hey" Allen snapped him out off his thoughts. "Were you even listening to me?"

"...kinda?"

"Oh, okay... so what did I say?"

Lavi leaned forward and smiled innocently. "You said that I am the most awesome guy you have ever met and that you can think nothing better than to hang out with me."

"A simple 'no' would've been enough."

"Okay sorry man. What did you say?"

"I was just asking if we should go out and have some ice cream. It's a rather lovely day and it would be a total waste to spend it all inside."

"Whatever makes you happy my darling friend."

_Don't. Don't say that. Don't call me your friend right after calling me your 'darling'._

Pushing his dark thoughts aside, Allen gave Lavi his sweet smile. "Great. I'll just grab my coat."

The weather was indeed very beautiful and it was hard to be on a bad mood when the sun was warming up the whole city like that. Stepping outside into the sunshine Allen couldn't help but to close his eyes and take a deep breath. After a couple of seconds he felt Lavi walk right next to him.

"What are you doing, little man?"

"Enjoying life."

The redhead laughed and patted Allen's head gently. "That sounds great."

When he lifted his gaze from the white haired boy, a familiar figure appeared walking towards them.

"Hey, that's Kanda. " He lifted his hand up and waved to the boy. "Hey! Yuu! Here!"

Kanda's expressionless face immediately turned into an expression like he just saw something disgusting and sickening.

Lavi smiled happily and Allen nodded as an hello.

"What are you doing here, Yuu? You still have something in your old room?" the redhead asked curiously.

"I'm seriously considering murdering you in your sleep if you keep calling me by that name."

"Ouch..."

Then he laid his eyes on Allen. "But no, I actually came here because I have something to discuss with  _him_."

Allen winced. "Me? What have I done now?"

Before Kanda could speak out, a high pitched and cheerful voice called from the other side of the yard. "LAVI!"

Lavi immediately waved happily when he saw a cute busty girl running towards him. "Oh, hiiiii! ~ Chomesuke! Come here!"

Chomesuke smiled playfully and gave the redhead a flirty wink. "Long time no see!"

Allen recognized her to be the girl who Lavi was flirting with at his party last time and he turned his gaze away. There was nothing wrong with Chomesuke, really. But Allen couldn't help that jealous little pinch in his heart when Lavi was smiling to her.

Kanda viewed the younger boy curiously, but didn't say anything and turned to look at Lavi.

"Sooooo?" Chomesuke enquired. "What's going on? Are you going somewhere?"

Allen opened his mouth to answer, but Lavi was quicker. "Actually we're going to buy some ice cream."

"Oh ice cream! I love ice cream!" she rejoiced.

"You wanna join us?"

Allen quickly opened his mouth. "What?!"

Chomesuke smiled ignoring Allen's protesting face. "Oh that would be lovely!" Then she sweetly smiled to Allen. "Is that really okay? You don't mind me coming with you and Lavi?"

The boy turned his gaze away. "I guess it's okay..."

Lavi didn't seem to notice anything wrong and it made Allen feel even worse.

"Will you buy me one? You owed me money the last time I checked" The girl giggled.

"Anything for you, sweety" Lavi joked.

_Fine. Go with your 'sweety' then. I don't care._

"Excuse me," Allen cleared his throat and all the three of them laid their eyes at him. Allen knew he was a real killjoy doing this and the last thing he wanted to do was to ruin the for other people, but he also knew he couldn't watch Lavi with Chomesuke all day.

"I actually just remembered something I really need to be doing so... you guys go ahead and have fun, okay?"

Just when he was going to turn around and leave, Lavi touched his shoulder lightly and looked very concerned. "Allen? Is something wrong? Do you want me to stay here with you?"

"No, you just go ahead. I'll be there if I can make it. Bye."

Without bothering to hear if anybody had anything else to say, he sprinted back inside leaving Lavi glance after him with rather disappointed expression.

"What's with him? A moment ago he seemed totally fine.."

Kanda snorted and stepped forward. "You really don't know what's with him, or you just don't want to know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well  _duh_  it's obvious that Moyashi still likes you."

Avoiding to look his friend in the eyes, Lavi shrugged his shoulders. "Well to me he said he doesn't like me anymore and we agreed to be just friends."

"And he just got mad with you flirting with a girl for no reason? Hmh?"

"Yuu, I told you already. He doesn't like me and I don't like him. Case closed. We are just friends."

Kanda looked like he was in a serious pain with this kind of idiotism he had to deal with. It was completely out off his hands.

"So..." he announced defiantly. "Are you  _sure_  don't like him?"

"Yyyeah... kinda."

"You are sure you're definitely not gonna date him?"

"Pretty much."

"Fine." Kanda spit out. "Then it doesn't matter to you if someone else will."

"Wait what?" Lavi sounded suddenly very alarmed. "Like who?"

For a short moment Kanda had this very mysterious doubtful look on his face which slowly turned into a arrogant smirk.

"Like, for example, me."

"WHAT?" the redhead let out an unmanly scream. "What are you- You...You wouldn't."

"Watch me go" was the only answer he got from the long haired boy as he turned on his heels and dashed indoors.

It took a second for Lavi to fully understand the situation, and when the realization hit him he felt like he was losing it.

"KANDA WAIT!" he shouted running after him leaving Chomesuke come to a decision that she should probably leave this drama alone.

Inside the dorm Kanda hurried to Allen's door (which luckily to him was unlocked) and slammed the door open and then closed it behind him. Allen turned around in surprise only to find Kanda stepping towards him and grabbing his collar.

"Answer me: Do you like Lavi?" the older boy demanded.

Allen looked around him confused as ever and all he could do was stutter. "Wh- how? What - what are you-"

"Just fucking answer me, do you like him?"

"Y-yeah I do, but I-"

"Do you want to be with him?"

"I dooon't quite understand what is going on he-"

" _Do you want to be with him_?"

"Well yea-"

"Fine if that idiot of a rabbit really is what you want. Now listen here you son of a bitch: you have to do exactly as I say and I promise you will have your happily ever fucking after. Now kiss me."

Kanda pushed him to the wall and kissed him very passionately and Allen - still very confused about what was going on - kissed him back.

It wasn't quite the same heavenly feeling that he got when he kissed Lavi, but this kiss wasn't bad either. Kanda was a great kisser.

Just when Allen closed his arms around Kanda's neck to continue the kiss, Lavi slammed the door open and the two of them broke from the act.

"Hey!" the redhead bawled staring Allen and Kanda alternately. "What the hell you think you're doing?"

"You said you didn't want him" Kanda remarked dryly. Allen gave him a questioning glare.

"Yeah, I said, but-"

"Then I don't see how this is a problem."

There was a quiet short moment when Lavi was slowly putting pieces together. "Wait. Do you actually mean that you... and..."

Kanda pulled the shorter boy quickly closer to him and examined Lavi's dismayed face.

"We are dating now. Allen and I. Suck it."

Allen just blinked while Kanda was pressing him against his shirt.

_Huh?_


	10. Almost

Lavi was leaning against the wall wreathed in white mist. He was waiting something, he knew he was. But what, he had no idea. Was it a person? Was it an event that would change his life forever? He had no clue.

Suddenly he realized there was a man standing right next to him. Lavi soon enough discovered the man to be Tyki but didn't bother to react to his presence in any way.

"What are you doing out here in the mist funny boy?" Tyki asked.

"Waiting."

Tyki's voice was sweet as always. "Might you, by any chance, be waiting for me?"

Lavi shook his head lightly and kept staring at nothing. "No. I got tired of waiting for you a long time ago. You should know that."

"I know that" sweet voice laughed gently. "But I like to keep your interest alive. Who are you waiting for if it's not me?"

Lavi shrugged without moving his eye away from the mist. "I don't know. But I'm sure there is someone I should be waiting for."

Suddenly something moved in the mist that made Lavi winch.

Tyki just kept looking arrogant. "What is it?"

"There's something in the mist. See? It's... it's... is it a curtain?"

In the mist there was indeed a curtain. It was translucent and as white as the mist, floating gently in the light wind. Behind the curtain there was a person. It was hard to see through the mist and the curtain and Lavi had to come a few steps closer to see the person.

White hair, red mark on his face, pale skin - and those endlessly gray eyes that sorrowfully looked back at him but didn't seem to see him through the curtain.

Lavi wanted to call out his name but he had no voice. He wanted to push the curtain away but he had no power to move his hands. He could only stare right at the boy and wish that their eyes would meet even for a short moment.

"He can't see me."

And with that sentence ringing in his ears Lavi woke up on. Staring at the ceiling and slowly coming back to the reality he still had Allen's name on his lips, but he didn't dare to say it out loud.

"Ugh, what a nightmare..." he moaned. "Almost as bad as the fact that Allen and Kanda are..." Lavi turned on his side and closed his eyes. "Man, I wish that would have been a dream too." After a while of turning uncomfortably around on his bed he finally fell back asleep and hoped he would feel better at the morning.

He didn't.

At the school he felt even more horrible than the night before. It was a real pain seeing Allen so happy with someone else. It wasn't that he didn't want Allen to be happy, no. He wanted Allen to be happy more than anything. But what really was bothering him was the fact that he wasn't happy with _him_ _._  He looked like he didn't need Lavi and even though he never really avoided him, he clearly had no time for him either. He was running around the school with Lenalee and Kanda and most of the time when he had a longer break he disappeared somewhere with his new grumpy boyfriend.

"It's not fair" he mumbled.

"Well. It's not like you wanted to date him anyway" Lenalee gently patted Lavi's head sitting next to him in the hallway. "I'm a little surprised though. This whole new dating thing kinda destroys the idea of Kanda not being gay. Or maybe he doesn't care anymore. Good."

Lavi lifted his head. "So you two were faking it. I knew it!"

Lenalee shrugged her shoulders. "It was kind of obvious."

"Hmph. I liked it more when he was fake-dating you" Lavi murmured and slithered to the floor.

"Get up Lavi, you are being stupid."

"But this has been going on for like a week now. They don't even like each other..." A pitiful whine called from the floor.

Lenalee got up and gave her friend a plaintive smile. "You should really talk to him. And I mean, really. Do not pull some unimportant chit chat with him. I mean you should actually go and tell him everything you think and feel. No matter how complicated it may feel, just be honest. You'll work things out."

"Buuuuuuut!"

"No buts. Just do it."

"Fine. But if things don't work out I'll be mad at you!"

"Really?"

"NO."

***

Allen sat awkwardly on Kanda's bed while the other was doing his homework on the computer.

"How long are we gonna keep doing this?" he asked fumbling the blanket with his fingers. Kanda didn't answer and stared at the computer screen so Allen kept talking: "I mean, don't you think we look kinda awkward together?"

Kanda shrugged and kept on writing.

"Kanda, really. You don't have to do this for me."

The other stopped his writing and turned around to face Allen. "I'm not doing this for you."

"Then why are you doing this? We look weird as hell together! I mean, we always hang out but never even touch each other and you look like you'd like to kill me every now and then. Why? Why do we have to do this?"

"It's for Lavi."

Allen tilted his head. "Huh? Why are you doing this for Lavi? I thought you hated Lavi?"

"I do. I hate pretty much everybody."

Allen got a feeling Kanda didn't actually hate people as much as he told everyone, but he decided to keep his mouth shut. Instead he made a loud suffering noise and fell on the bed. "You make absolutely no sense to me."

"Just whatever the fuck pops in that tiny brain of yours, do not give Lavi what he wants. Not even if he says he wants you now because that's only gonna lead into trouble."

"But... what if it won't?"

"It. Will." Kanda stressed.

The other rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah whatever. Look, I have some books to return to the library so I think I'll leave now."

Kanda raised his eyebrow. "At this hour? You do know how to read the clock, right? It's almost midnight."

"I'm only turning these in, Kanda." Allen snorted. "It only takes like five minutes at max to go there and back."

The library was pitch black and though Allen would never admit it, he was a little spooked out by the shadows lurking behind the bookshelves. Worrying he shouldn't be there, he didn't even turn on the lights. The library was supposed to be closed at the nighttime, but the doors _were_  open in case any of the student needed to do late night reading in peace. Allen surely didn't have anyone's permission to wander around returning books but even without one Allen thought this should be okay. After all it wasn't a big deal if he just left the books on the table and left. No worries.

While he was carefully placing the books on the table, a sudden sound made him quickly turn around.

"Who's there?" he asked much more bravely than he actually felt.

It was Lavi looking as much surprised as he looked uncomfortable.

"Oh" Allen let his guard down immediately. "It was just you. I was worried it might be Road or you know, someone else who would be very unpleasant to meet."

Lavi's usually so emotional face fell totally expressionless and all he did was nod a little.

"What are you doing here so late?" the younger boy asked, starting to feel a little uncomfortable under Lavi's cold stare. "I mean. Uh. I'm here to return some books I borrowed but I actually do live in the dorm, unlike you. It doesn't make much sense for you to be here at this hour."

Lavi didn't move a muscle and kept observing Allen. "I came here to relax. Libraries are relaxing places" he quietly stated.

"Oh, okay. Do you often come here then?"

No answer. Just a cold stare.

"Okay... so...You want me to leave? If you want to relax, I mean."

The situation started to feel a little too uncomfortable for the young teen and he got a feeling he should really leave. "So. Yeah. Not in the mood for chatting, huh? I - I guess I'll just be going then."

When he was just about to move, Lavi suddenly spoke.

"I thought you hated Kanda."

"Huh?" Allen winched. "Uh, yeah, well... I don't  _hate_  him or anything like that-"

"But you don't like him?"

"..."

"Then why are you with him? You two didn't seem to get along before. As a matter of fact you don't seem to get along now" Lavi remarked dryly.

Allen shrugged his shoulders. "I really should be going now."

He stepped forward to walk away, but Lavi suddenly moved forward too and showed him to the wall. Alarmed Allen tried to push him away, but Lavi held his wrists to prevent him from escaping.

"If you don't like him then what's the point of being with him?!"

"Lavi let me g-"

"Answer me!"

For the first time Allen was actually a little scared of Lavi's behavior. Sure Lavi was reckless and a bit extreme but he/Allen had never actually felt like he could hurt him.

"I.." he stuttered quietly. "I... I don't know.."

Lavi didn't move a muscle and kept staring intensively into Allen's eyes. "Sure you do. You can't just date somebody without a reason."

Allen stared him back with a defiant look. "That sounds awfully lot like something you would do, though."

Lavi grinned his teeth together and hissed; "I would never date somebody without knowing the reason why."

"You know, whatever. I don't actually have any time for this right now. Let me go so I can leav-"

He was cut off by Lavi's lips strongly pushing against his own. Part of Allen wanted to kiss him back so bad, but the other and much more dominant part wanted to try and push Lavi away from him. He would not let Lavi have him this easily. Not again.

Allen broke from the kiss by turning his head away. "Don't."

"Why?" Lavi's voice sounded angry. "I know you like it."

"That's not the point. I'm not gonna kiss you or have sex with you or... or anything like that!"

"Why? You want it! I know you do!"

"SO WHAT IF I DO?" the younger boy yelled and furiously wrenched his wrists off of Lavi's hands and before he knew it he had wrapped his arms closely over Lavi's neck and kissed him hungrily.

Allen felt his whole body heating up as he pulled the other's face closer to him and he felt Lavi slip his other hand in his white hair. They clumsily stumbled over the desk and Lavi lifted Allen to sit on the edge.

When they finally broke the kiss Lavi gasped . "Why you so suddenly-"

"Lavi shut up" Allen hissed and pulled the redhead back to kiss him greedily. When they broke from the kiss again Lavi moved lower to kiss Allen's neck and then unbuttoning his pants.

"I guess you still want to keep your shirt on, eh?" he politely asked and the other shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah, whatever."

Smirking Lavi licked his fingers and when they were moistened he found his way to tease the other's back before slipping one inside. Allen winched and let out a moan leaning over Lavi's shoulder.

"Ah- hah - Lavi" he whispered panting heavily. "Just put it inside."

"Are you sure?" Lavi panted out.

The younger boy gently moved closer to whisper to his ear. "Don't you - ah - even think I'll ask you -nngh - again."

Without any other words needed, Lavi pushed Allen down on his back and pushed himself in. Allen gasped loudly and his head jerked back. He grabbed Lavi's neck and pulled him closer to kiss him passionately.

The books he had placed on the table came tumbling down to the floor.

***

The next day after school Allen laid on his back staring at the ceiling thinking about this annoying situation he had put himself into. He had sex with Lavi. Again. The only thing he was definitely not supposed to do and then he just went ahead and did it.

He let out a sigh and turned on his side.

He really liked Lavi. He couldn't stop thinking about the redhead and because of this recent 'incident' there was nothing else he had thought about during the whole day. Rushing his skinny fingers down his silver hair he grabbed the phone and hesitating a little he texted Kanda.

**I had sex with Lavi. Last night. At the library.**

His phone immediately beeped as his "boyfriend" answered

_**WHAT THE FUCK MOYASHI?! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ARE YOU COMPLETELY STUPID?!** _

_Yes_ , Allen wanted to say.  _Yes I am_. But instead he wrote:

**I know I wasn't supposed to do that. I'm sorry. Where are you? Can we talk about this whole... thing?**

After that, he didn't receive another text so he figured it would be best to just let the stormy Kanda calm down. At the moment he was probably murdering his pillow thinking it was Allen or something.

When Allen heard a sudden knock on his door, he stupidly think it was Kanda and just replied with "Yeah come in".

The door opened, but instead of angry and murderous Kanda inside stepped Lavi with a confused and uneasy look on his face.

"...Can I come in?" he asked politely which wasn't really like him at all.

The younger teen sat up and nodded with a small smile. "I guess you are already in. Come on, it's ok."

"Okay, yeah, okay" the other mumbled and stepped in closing the door behind him. Instead of sitting on the bed next to Allen he stayed by the door. "Listen, about the last night at the library.."

"Yeah?"

"You left so soon and we never actually talked about it.."

Allen snorted, still smiling. "It's okay, don't worry. It was just a sex. Thanks for that though, it felt great."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. You don't have to worry about feelings and stuff because I surely didn't."

Immediately Lavi's face turned dark and he got defensive. "I wanted to talk to you about it because  _I_  actually thought there was something more than just sex!"

The younger teen got up and coldly turned his back on Lavi. "Sorry, but it wasn't. At that moment you honestly meant me nothing but sex."

Upset Lavi hit his fist on the door behind him and started to yell with a hurt tone on his voice. "You don't mean that! I have been seriously thinking about this and I was actually ready to - to - UGHT! Just forget it then! It's not fair that you just used me for sex and then you act like I mean nothing to you!"

Even though he felt a guilty pinch in his chest, Allen just flashed Lavi a sweet smile. "Funny. That's exactly how you treated me after the first time we had sex."

"Fuck you!" Lavi spat and opened the door to leave, but before he could take one step outside someone else took one in.

"What a wonderful night it is" Tyki smiled innocently and closed the door behind him forcing Lavi to quickly stumble backwards. "Now that you're finished your little chitchat I think we have some unfinished matters we might want to take care of."


	11. Darkness awaits

Immediately after Tyki entered the room Lavi stumbled backwards and grabbing Allen's hand pulling the younger boy behind his back. Allen felt like his heart skipped few beats as he tried all his might to fight the panic attack he felt he was going to have.

Fearfully, he pressed his face against Lavi's back without closing his eyes. He could feel his friend's breathing getting intense and his heartbeat rising.

A light smirk covered Tyki's face as he negligently viewed the room. Gazing at the bookshelf seemingly calm he snatched a notebook and innocently leafed through it. "Don't look so surprised to see me" he commented the other's shocked faces. "You look like you had no idea this was eventually gonna happen."

"Well I think we just very passionately hoped we would never have to see your ugly arrogant face again" Lavi snapped back with a cheeky tone.

Laying the notebook back to the shelf Tyki gave him a mournful look. "Ouch. You really hurt my gentle heart with those spiteful words."

Taking a step backwards a bitter smile painted Lavi's lips. "There is no need to lie about the true nature of your heart. As if we wouldn't already know how fast you can go from gentle to murderous."

The tall man instantly bursted in to laughter and strided forward making the two teens back out. "Is that so? Let's be honest from now on, then."

Taking a quick peek behind himself Lavi noticed they were pretty close to the bathroom.

_Okay Lavi_ _,_  he strictly ordered himself, _you have to play this cool now. Don't fool around like you always do._

Lightly touching Allen behind him, he whispered. "Hey, Allen? Don't worry. I know how-"

"Now now, it's not very polite to whisper like that when I'm here. Don't you know you should keep your quests entertained?" Tyki chuckled interrupting him and sat on the bed to wipe a tear out of the corner of his eye. "I must say: you are way funnier than I even remembered! I honestly miss spending time with you Eyepatch."

"Oh yeah?" the redhead grinned his teeth together. "Well I have some news for you: I don't miss you a bit. So why don't you just - I don't know - _fucking leave_ _?!_ " he bravely exclaimed only for his alarm to witness Tyki's laughter slowly turn into a seriously frightening smile.

"It's funny how fast you forget that your punny threats don't work on me" the older man commented looking directly at him. "But it's nice to see you have someone in your life you care enough to put your own life at risk. But it's for nothing... because I'm not here to take Allen with me."

Allen tightened his grip on Lavi's shirt.

_No._

Having absolutely no idea what Tyki was talking about, Lavi slowly tilted his head. "Then...What... are you here for?"

Shrugging his shoulder Tyki stood up and took a step closer. "Oh my sweet dear boy. You see... Since our precious little Allen here is refusing to co-operate with me and Road and kidnapping him clearly won't change his mind so we had to discuss what to do about this."

"...and?"

For a while Tyki and Lavi stared at each other in unpleasant silence.

"And" Tyki then pronounced slowly. "We have come to the decision to get rid of Allen."

Lavi's entire body froze to the place.

Allen's grip on the redhead's shirt tightened.

"Me and Road - as much as we hate to do it - decided to get rid of him." Tyki happily pulled out a knife from his jacket like it was nothing. "In other words we have to put him to death. Kill him. Destroy him. It will be a delight. Wistful, but delight."

A weak squeak escaped Allen's lips.

Lavi backed another step towards the bathroom, gently pushing Allen with his hads still keeping the eye contact with the older man. "What about me and the other people who know about this? You can't possibly get away from this whole thing simply by killing-"

"Oh we are going to slay you off too. Don't you worry about that." A sinister grin painted the tall man's whole face.

The tension was so thick that you could have cut it with a knife. Both of the teens were seriously about to die in any moment and there was nothing in the room to use as a weapon to defend themselves.

Lavi closed his eyes for a second.

"Allen" he stated quietly, almost whispering. "I'm sorry. Don't open the door no matter what happens. I'm going to try and fight him."

The younger teen winced and gave Lavi a terrified look. "Lavi wha-"

Never getting to finish his sentence, he only got to see Lavi suddenly turn around and push him into the bathroom face full of terror and Tyki dashing towards him.

Slam.

The door closed.

"NO!" the scream escaped from Allen's lips. "NO!"

Other side of the door Lavi had planned to turn to face his opponent, but now the only he could feel was the unbelievable pain as the sharp blade pierced his side.

He let out a painful scream and leaned against the door trying so hard not to fall on the floor as dark red blood spilled everywhere. Pressing the wound with his shaking hands he met Tyki's eyes.

"Allen lock the door" he whimpered.

"No!" he heard a tearful answer behind the door.

Ignoring that Lavi turned to Tyki and looked him dead in the eye. "I won't... let you... " he panted feeling his every muscle wanting to give up on him.

He felt Allen slamming his hands (or his body) to the door and crying, but he could not let Tyki get to Allen. Not this time. So he put everything in his power to push back and keep the younger boy behind that door.

"LAVI PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR!" Allen screamed in desperation. "LAVI PLEASE! OPEN THE DOOR! PLEASE! HE WANTS ME NOT YOU! OPEN THE DOOR!"

A weak smile painted Lavi's face as he watched Tyki raise his knife. "Yeah," he whispered. "There is no way I'm gonna do that darling."

"LAVI I'LL GO WITH TYKI! PLEASE HE IS GOING TO KILL YOU IF I DON'T!"

Lavi snorted. "That is definitely why I won't let you out. Because you're going to get yourself killed. And-"

Tears running down his face Allen could hear Lavi's painful scream again but as he tried to push the door open it seemed that the redhead was still working really hard on keeping him from getting out.

"Lavi come inside" he weakly sobbed. There was no strength left in him to do anything but to listen to Lavi's painful screams. Lavi was gonna die.

_What about you?_

A sorrowful smile slowly found his way to Allen's pale lips.

_Me?_ He asked himself. _Oh yeah, I'm definitely gonna die too. But..._

He felt his whole body shaking.

_But... I would go in piece if I only could get Lavi out of this mess alive._

Allen fell on the floor powerless and stared the ceiling with an empty eyes. This sucked. He was gonna die. Lavi - his most loved person - was gonna die. Tyki would go all his way to find Lenalee and Kanda and kill them. Everything was wrong. The floor was hard and cold. His eyes hurt from crying. His throat was sore. His cellphone was pressing against his tight which felt so uncomfortable.

...

His cellphone.

He had a phone.

In his pocket.

As quick as that Allen felt all his strength come back and he pulled the phone out. God, he felt like such an _idiot._  He should win the award of being the most idiotic idiot alive. How could he have the phone in his pocket all this time and not once he realized the could just call for help?

While he still felt embarrassed about his own stupidy he pushed that away to dial the first number on his phone that he came across.

A few painfully long seconds later Kanda's grumpy voice answered. "What the-"

"Kanda please help!" Allen screamed with and unclear and sore voice, sobs covering almost everything he was trying to say. "Lavi's in danger and I'm in the bathroom and - and - and-"

"Wait what? Where are you?"

"I'm in my room at the dorm and - and - and - Tyki's here and -"

"WHAT?"

"T-t-t-tyki is here and - and- h-he is going to kill Lavi and - m-me and-"

And then Kanda hung up.

Meanwhile, outside of momentary safety of the bathroom, Lavi lied on ground. Only a moment ago he was pressing his hands against the wounds on this stomach, but now he just lied on the pool of his own blood, having no power to move any part of his body. His vision was getting unclear and his breathing had gotten heavy.

"It...hurts" he panted with a coarse voice.

Tyki sat next to him, observing the redhead curiously. He could have killed him quickly, if he wanted, and there had been enough time to kill Allen too, but somehow he was unable to. Like he almost wanted to give them a chance to get out of this alive.

"Of course it hurts" he stated, this time with much less amusement in his voice than he used to have. "You're are slowly dying."

Lavi eyed his figure thoughtfully. "Yeah."

The older man sighed. "Why didn't you try to save yourself instead of him?"

The redhead made a movement that looked like shrugging his shoulder. Tyki couldn't tell for sure but that's what he thought it was at least.

"Okay. You don't want to tell me." He tilted his head back and let out and repressed voice. "Urgh, I suddenly don't feel like killing you anymore, you know? Too much history with you. I still care about you... you know that don't you?"

There was nothing Lavi could do. He was only able to breath heavily and shrug a little.

Tyki felt seriously frustrated. "I mean, damn! I think this is going to be much harder than I first imagined. I don't even feel very amused anym-"

Cutting the man in mid-sentence the door suddenly slammed open. Or the door rather exploded open because Kanda apparently crushed right through it as like there was no other way to enter the room.

As quick as the lighting the long haired boy dashed towards Lavi, kicked Tyki over while the other was just starting to realize what was happening and pressed his sword on the man's throat.

"If you try to move a muscle I swear to god I will cut you open."

For a moment there was a pure surprise in Tyki's eyes but it faded away quickly and got replaced by irritation. "I recall this kind of thing happened the last time we met too. I'm just getting started and suddenly you appear and ruin my fun. I can only blame myself about this, I guess." Even with the sword on his throat Tyki still managed to give him a smug smile. "Do you mind getting this thing off of my throat? You're not going to kill me. They'd put you in prison. Don't you know what they do there to pretty boys like you?"

Kanda didn't bat an eye. "It's funny how you think pretty boys like me couldn't handle a few perverts coming onto them."

"I see." A smug smile faded away.

Kanda kicked Lavi gently on the side. "Oi, Lavi. You okay? Can you move?"

"Does he look like he is  _okay_?" Tyki's voice commented with a pissed tone. "I stabbed him like three or four times."

"Where's Allen?" Kanda demanded gazing at the room around him. "AL- I mean. MOYASHI?" he called.

The bathroom door behind Lavi opened revealing the sobbing boy who fell out like a broken doll and pressed tightly against Lavi's body.

"Hey!" Kanda snapped. "Be careful, he is badly hurt!"

"You think I don't know that?" Allen mumbled more to himself than to Kanda and pressed even tighter against Lavi's motionless body.

On the floor under Allen's tight grip Lavi slowly closed his eyes with a self-satisfied smile creeping on his bloody face.

It was fine. It was all fine now. Allen was safe. Tyki was probably going to end up in prison.

Then he sunk down into the darkness.

He could hear Kanda's voice becoming more angry and Allen's sweet voice beginning to yell, but it was all such a distant sound now. It was like they were in another room, far away from this place he was.

The darkness was oddly comforting as it embraced him softly. He couldn't feel the pain anymore. It was all gone.

_Hmh..._ Lavi knew he should be alarmed, but all he could think was how comfortable he felt.  _This actually feels... nice? I guess. Even though I can't really hear or see Allen and Kanda anymore... But I can still smell Allen's scent right next to me. I like it. He smells so nice._

_I guess I never told him that? But then again there are many things I never got to tell him._

_Dammit.. I've been such a jerk and he should hate me for that. And still I' have these selfish thoughts about how I want to do selfish things with him. Like embrace him. Kiss him. Tell him I love him so much I could just cry. Ah man, I'm the worst._

_But it's too late._

_This is is. This is how I go. It's okay and it's fine and I really don't mind._

_I don't mind. Not at all._

_I don't mind._

_I really don't mind._

_Not at all..._

_And still._

_I say it's okay if I go now, and still..._

_I really want to be selfish one more time._


	12. Looking closer

Waiting is one of the hardest things in life you'll ever have to do. It doesn't matter whether you are waiting somebody to give you an answer to your confession or waiting for a phone call from the dream job you applied. The tension it builts affects your whole body. It feels chilly and your heart starts beating so bad you'll fear it will jump out of your chest or just stops beating for good. You can barely stand but you feel like you can't really sit down and just do nothing. It feels like excitement but at the same time you feel afraid and vulnerable and anxious.

Yeah, waiting is the worst.

In this case, the only person Allen could blame for the waiting was himself.

It had already been a month since then.

Since it happened.

When Lavi had collapsed on the floor losing his consciousness, Allen had been sure that it'd been the end of him. Luckily enough for Allen's great relief it hadn't. The ambulance had gotten there in time. Lavi had gotten the treatment in time. The blood loss hadn't yet been too great. Lavi had survived.

Despite these facts Allen felt extreme guilty for this incident. If it wasn't for him, his selfish actions, this would have never happened to Lavi or anyone else. He was relieved that Lavi was still alive and had gotten out of the hospital already, but he didn't have the courage to face the older teen.

He sat pitifully on his bed, mindlessly drawing circles on the sheets with his fingers.

He hadn't seen Lavi since then and the urge just to run to see him was enormous. But no matter how much he tried, he just couldn't face the redhead. Not after he had almost lost him. It had all been his fault, and just to know that felt terrible. At first he had thought he would just wait until Lavi woke up and then he would see him, apologize and all that but when the moment came it clarified that it wasn't as easy. He just couldn't force himself to face Lavi.

Then, Allen had thought, maybe he should just wait until he'd get out of the hospital and then they could meet. But he never did go and visit Lavi and then Lavi got out of the hospital and it was over. No more chances to apologize or even the courage to call him.

So it had been a month of waiting to be brave enough and at this point Allen was afraid he would end up waiting forever.

The knock on his door suddenly cut the train of his thought and the boy slowly got up and lazily wandered to open it. He did it slowly and carefully, almost afraid. There was no chance for Tyki or Road to pop up behind his door again, but just the memories of them kept him on his toes.

Behind the door stood Kanda, looking as indifferent as always. "Yo."

Not fully opening the door Allen nodded. "Hi."

"...You...uh... okay? I see they fixed your door."

Giving the door a quick glance the younger boy nodded again. He didn't really care about the door.

For some reason Kanda seemed uneasy. They hadn't met since the incident either and having him show up in his dorm like this felt odd. It wasn't like he hadn't had any visitors, oh no. Numerous people, teachers and other students had knocked on his door this past month to make sure he was okay. Lenalee had been visiting almost every day to comfort him and take care of things for him that he was too tired to do himself. So seeing that it was Kanda this time raised a few questions about his intentions.

But as weird as it seemed for him to be here, Allen decided it was stupid to just stand silently on the doorway so he stepped back and made room for Kanda to enter. He waited until the other finally took a step in and then closed the door.

The two of them stood in silence again, this time inside the room. Kanda was the first one to talk. "Sorry about your door" he stated.

Allen shrugged and sat on the bed, mindlessly feeling the fabric of the sheets with his fingers. "It's okay. I don't care about the door."

The silence once again landed upon them. Allen was surprisingly happy to see Kanda after this long month, but to be completely honest he didn't really know what to do or say. Of all the visitors Lenalee had been easiest to talk with and Allen didn't really mind her company and actually sometimes even preferred it. But this was Kanda. Kanda didn't do the chichat thing. He didn't mindlessly blabber about this and that or just come and make sure somebody was okay. Especially Allen.

"It's weird when you're not being mad at me" he silently spoke.

In his big surprise he saw Kanda staring back at him in confusion. "Who said I'm not mad at you?"

It was Allen's turn to get confused. "Huh? So you are mad at me."

"Of course I am! You should go and see Lavi. He doesn't know what to do and he's too much of a coward to face you." Kanda's voice was annoyed yet somehow unfittingly gentle. "You both are such idiots it physically hurts me to watch you."

"Says probably the biggest idiot of us all."

At first he was a little afraid that the older boy would punch him, but it seemed he had no intention to do so as he just calmly sat next to Allen crossing his arms. Pausing for a moment to consider the things he was going to say he reluctantly turned his gaze to the younger boy.

"He - waits. Too. To you. I mean. Go." Realizing how clumsy he must've sound his face reddened and he fast tried to define his words better. "I mean. Uh. Lavi really wants to meet you and he's been waiting for you to come and see him but he doesn't know how to approach you... So I think it would be best if you'd save everyone's time and go see him instead."

"I can't." Allen protested calmly with that sad smile of his that made Kanda a little more annoyed that it should have. "It's my fault he almost died. I couldn't look him in the eyes after that. What if...". The tears found their way to his aching eyes even though he tried to fight them. "What if he hates me after what happened to him?! I would hate me after that."

The other let out a sigh. "He doesn't hate you. Only person here who seems to hate you is you yourself."

Allen winced. "That's... I don't..."

"You always act like you do. The only person who hates you  _is you_."

The younger boy let out tearful laughter. "So you don't hate me?"

Kanda didn't smile, but, Allen swore, there was still something rather warm in his voice. "Of course I do."

"Of course you do" Allen gently replied.

The moment of too familiar silence once again landed upon them, but this time Allen didn't mind. He would even say it was what felt the most comfortable opinion right now. It was exhausting to try to talk with Kanda and it must have been exhausting to him too since he too looked quite pleased by this.

Short while passed by, neither of them saying nothing and the other slowly moved his position closer to Allen.

"I should get going" he whispered laboriously and pressed his lips softy against Allen's cheek. The kiss was short and gentle and lasted only a few seconds but when Kanda pulled back and stood up it somehow looked like he had wanted it to last longer. "And for the record; I lied. I don't actually hate you. I just don't really like you that's all."

He stumbled quickly to the door and Allen was left sitting on his bed and couldn't help but wonder if that had been a lie too.

_And_ , Allen smiled knowingly,  _you just don't receive kisses like that everyday_.

"Hey" he spoke just the moment Kanda was about to exit.

He turned around to view the younger's face. "...yeah?"

"I'm not gonna tell anyone that you like me" Allen smiled with that sheepish expression that made him look like a little devil.

"Fuck you."

Kanda closed the door.

After he had safely escaped to the hallway (not escaped, he told himself, retreated) he felt someone step next to him.

"How did it go?" Lenalee's sweet voice asked softly. "I came here to make sure Allen is okay and bring him this book he asked me to get, but I heard you talking inside so I didn't dare to bother you."

Kanda shrugged his shoulder lazily. "Didn't go as bad as I thought it would. That guy is a pain in the ass after all."

She poked him gently. "Meanie."

"So are you going to go in now?"

Lenalee shook her head. "No... I really want to, but I think talking with you must have been exhausting to him so I don't want to bother him."

"Tsk."

"Oh no," she quickly rushed to correct, "I didn't mean it like that. I just..." She sighed. "You two can't really seem to handle a normal conversation and it just doesn't seem to come naturally. So, you know, that kind of thing can very easily be mentally tiring. And he's been tired enough these past weeks."

"Okay." Kanda kept walking, getting Lenalee to step after him. "I think you might be right. I think Beansprout should really take time to care for himself."

Lenalee let out a giggle, instantly earning a disapproving look from her friend.

"Oh," she calmly laughed, "It's just sweet to see you secretly care about him."

"Shut up."

Lenalee carefully took his hand to her own and smiled kindly. "You still need a fake girlfriend?"

"Yeah" he quietly agreed. "That would be nice. I think I manage better with you than with that idiot anyway."

***

It was getting late. Allen lazily lied on his bed and thought about all that has happened to him since he came here, his thoughts being a one big mess. Thought about being with Lavi scared him. Sure, he felt... things... about him. But was it enough? Lavi had hurt him very badly and he wasn't sure if he should trust him again, but it also seemed like the other really cared for him.

But nothing seemed to get better and leaving things like they were now didn't really feel like a good idea.

He turned to his side, mindlessly staring at his phone lying next to him.

Should he call him? Just ask how he's doing?

It would seem pretty dumb though.

He should just go there and see him like Kanda had suggested.

Talk things through. Apologize. End this whole thing that was going on between them. It would be for the best. He still desperately felt the need to be with Lavi and kiss him and let him touch him and whisper sweet things in his ears... but it was never going to work. Not with Lavi not wanting him like he wanted to. Not with Lavi messing around with everyone.

Yeah.

Allen got up, grabbed the jacket and headed out. He hadn't visited Lavi's place many times, but he seemed to recall the way there. It wasn't that hard to find and soon enough he stood on the doorstep, very prepared to anything.  _Everything._

He knocked bravely and inhaled sharply when the door opened.

"Lavi- oh."

It was not Lavi. It was a short, older man. The man laid his piercing eyes on him and Allen naturally straightened his back and tried to look as polite and respectful as possible.

"I'm so sorry," he managed to stutter, "I thought you were - I'm here to - I need to speak with Lavi. Is he here?"

"Were else would he be?" the man stated matter of factly.

The teen felt his ears burning up. "Yeah, that was very silly of me. So, uh-"

"Might you be the Allen Walker my stupid son won't stop talking about?"

Blinking confused, Allen nodded. "Yeah. Yeah I am!" Lavi spoke of him?

"So you are the idiot who makes him act even more stupid than he is these days. Come in, he is in his room. I suppose you know where it is?"

"Yes. Thank you, mister...?"

"You may call me Bookman."

He bowed politely and headed inside after the man. "Yes sir!"

Heading straight to Lavi's room he all of a sudden felt the courage he had prepared disappear and being replaced by fear. There was still a chance this wasn't going to go as good as he had hoped. There was a chance Lavi didn't even want to see him, even though Kanda had assured he did.

He knocked on the door and carefully, hands shaking, peaked in.

"Uh, hi? Lavi?"

And there he was. Sitting on his bed, all patched up and alive, reading a book.

And when their eyes met, Lavi's face lightened up in a second and he stood up and hurried to the other.

"ALLEN!" he crowed, closing Allen to his gentle embrace. "Boy am I glad to see you little man! I was so worried! Are you okay? Are you hurt?" His hands were all around Allen's face, making sure he was okay and not hurt at all. "Are you mad at me?"

Trying to squirm out of other's arms Allen looked at him in confusion. "What? No! I'm not mad at you! And I'm okay. What about you? Are you okay?"

Still trying to hug him, Lavi just smirked. "Yeah. I'm all good now! It still hurts a little when I move too much, but overall I'm as good as new now."

"Good. And I'm so sorry about what happened to you. It was my fault after all."

"No no, it's okay! I'm just glad everything is back to normal now and-"

Allen pushed away. "Lavi."

Lavi tilted his head.

The words felt bitter, hard to get out. "Lavi.." His voice was small and weak. "We need to talk. I... I'm glad you're okay and..."

Why were the tears burning up his eyes now? This is what he wanted. He had decided this was for the best.

It was unfair.

"I want to end this thing between us."

Lavi threw his hand to air. "Not this again! Allen, I-"

"Yes this again!" Allen got mad. "This again until you too realize that this whole messy thing is bad for us! And it needs to stop."

You could have cut the tension in the room with a knife. Lavi was the first to move. He walked (limped, Allen noticed) to the bed and patted the spot next to him. "Sit. Let's talk. Hear me out."

"Lavi" the other tried to object, but Lavi kept patting the spot next to him so intensively that Allen made an effort to sit down and listen. But not right next to Lavi, a little further away.

This was what he wanted.

"So" Lavi started.

"So" Allen answered. "I don't know what's there to talk about anymore. I want to end this circus. It has to stop. I can't do this anymore. I'll end up hurting in the end. That's it-"

"Allen-"

"I've been stupid and this whole thing, I don't even know what it is-"

" _Would you please just listen?_ " the redhead cut him off. Allen wrinkled his nose in disapproval.

"Fine. I'm listening. Say whatever you have to say" he huffed.

"I don't know how to" Lavi whispered and stopped for a moment to think of his next words. One could almost hear his brain coming up with sentences he was never to finish. Finally he leaned to his hands and spoke.

"I'll put it like this: think about my life like it's... like it's a bookstore. A huge, wonderful bookstore full of different books. I mean, so many books. You couldn't even finish them all in your short fleeting lifetime."

"Okay. Sure." Allen commented dryly.

"And then," Lavi continued with sudden passion in his voice "You suddenly spot this very interesting book. A book that's so beautiful you can't get your gaze away from it. And when you get it in your hands and open it and you start reading - it's like ' _this is is, this is my book_ '. And you totally fall in love with it and you just keep reading it. It feels like this book really gets you, you know?" His eye was sparkling as he spoke. "That this book - only this book - makes you feel like somebody cares about you and you feel like your whole life is a one great adventure when you're holding it. You're having a great time, rushing through the pages in awe and..."

The sparkle in Lavi's eye suddenly died and for the moment he paused.

"...and?" the other repeated, now a little curious.

Lavi stared at nothing. "And... then it ends. The book. It just ends. And it's not a good ending. No, it's not an ending at all: it just leaves you wondering if there is more and why did the book end and it leaves you all alone with all these questions you'll never know the answer to.

So, you have to put the book back and start to read other books. But it doesn't matter how many books you read afterwards, it all feels just so unimportant and boring comparing to that one lovely book. That one book that left you with an unfair ending. That's..." his gaze wandered to Allen's eyes, lingering there for a while. "That's how I felt with Tyki. That's how it felt when he left me."

Allen's chest felt tight. "So.. what do you do after that?"

"You keep reading. But not like you read the first one, no, you never actually read these other books. You just look at the sentences and end it as quickly as you can and you just keep doing that without thinking about it. You just don't want to fall in love with another book that leaves you with so unsatisfying end. And one day while you're looking for a new pointless book to read you see something very -  _very_  - interesting."

Allen blinked. "What it is?"

Lavi turned to Allen and looked him straight in the eye. With tense voice, almost like a whisper, he slowly spoke. "It is a book."

"Just another book?!"

"No, not just  _any_  book" he stressed. "This book is quite interesting in a way no book has been so far. It's pure white, hiding in the corner of the shelf covered in dust. It looks like it doesn't want to be found and you can't help but to wonder; what is it like? And you take the book in your hands and open it and read a few sentences and you realize that this book is just so much more than it seems like."

A slight blush covered Allen's pale face.

"Before you know it you have read the whole prologue and you turn the pages exited for the following things and then it hits you. That you actually want to read this book. Not just browse trough it mindlessly -  _you want to read it_."

Allen moved restlessly on a place and moved his gaze unfocused somewhere. "If you want to read the book so badly, why don't you just read it?"

"Because I am scared."

The word scared was so unfitting to describe Lavi's personality it made Allen instantly winch and turn his gaze right back to the redhead.

Lavi in turn stared at the floor as if it was the most interesting thing in the universe.

With a quiet voice, he spoke. "I'm tired, Allen. I'm tired."

And then, a tear escaped Lavi's eye. And the other. And he just sat there, crying inconsolably and Allen didn't know what to do.

So he did only thing he even dared to try.

He slowly reached Lavi's red hair and pet it.

Not saying anything he allowed Lavi to curl up to his arms to cry his heart out. Seconds passed, tuning to minutes. He gently ran his fingers through the red hair and listened Lavi to finally let himself let go.

Lavi moved to put his arms around Allen's waist while laying on his lap. "I love you, Allen" he confessed with a raspy voice and Allen felt like his heart could just burst out of his chest.

Lavi loved him. Lavi wanted to try and love him.

Suddenly the voice continued to speak between the sobs. "I- I understand if you want to stop. You're not the only one who think I'm a horrible person incapable of feeling any kind of a human emotion."

"What- no!" Allen protested. "I don't think like that at all."

"Yeah... " Lavi's voice whimpered. "Sure. But... Just know that whatever you decide to do, I love you. It took me a while to accept it and... and now that I finally do I'm going to lose you for good. So.."

"Lavi-"

"...I just want you to know that I love you. I do. I really, truly do."

"You know..." Allen responded carefully,"I thought about this before I came here. I was thinking about being with you and it felt super scary." He waited as Lavi lifted his head to look at him. "But now I realize the thought of me being away from you seems way more scarier."

"I love you" Lavi bawled like it was the only thing he knew how to say anymore. "I love you."

Giving Lavi his sweetest, purest smile Allen leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I want to start over. For real this time. If you think we could?"

Lavi nodded, burying his head back to other's shirt. "I love you" he chanted, completely loss of words and tears still running down his cheek. "I love you, Allen. I love you."

After the tears finally stopped and Lavi stood up to sit, he brought his hand up to lightly caress Allen's cheek. Very warily he leaned ahead and just as their lips were about to touch he paused. "Allen," he queried "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes" Allen affirmed impatiently, "Please do."

_This_  is what he wanted.

It was first a timid, careful kiss. Gentle, with Lavi's hand on his cheek. And Allen wanted it to last forever. He lifted his arms around Lavi's neck, pulling him closer, making the kiss more fierce and passionate and  _oh god_  and when they finally broke from the contact he let his eyes rest on Lavi's beautiful green one. It was like an emerald. Unlike any other green color he had ever seen. And this eye studied him lovingly, asking for another kiss. And Allen was ever as eager to give him what he wanted. Because this time - for the first time - they both did it purely for their affection and care and love for each other.

It was like a wild fire. Like an ocean wave crashing to the wall. Satisfying and fulfilling and yet, leaving you begging for more. Lavi's hands were all over him, touching his face, caressing his back, his hair, his  _everything_. His lips tasted salty. His body was burning up.

"Allen," Lavi whispered, resting his forehead on other's shoulder. "Do you think you could stay the night?"

_Yes_ , Allen wanted to scream,  _yes, I think_. But the rational side of him knew that this was a risk. "I don't know if it's a good idea. I mean, I don't know if I'm ready to do anything more than kissing. Not yet". He didn't want to rush things.

"I know. I wasn't thinking of doing anything. I just want you to stay. I just want to hold you." And then he looked at Allen with that emerald eye of his, filled with plead and affection. "Please?"

_Dammit._  "I guess that would be nice."

***

It had been a while since Allen had spend the night, and this time too, he lied awake. But it was different. This was comfortable and it felt just right and Lavi's warm breath on his neck was soothing and slowly lulled him to the state of almost sleeping. But not quite.

Allen felt a sudden nudge on his neck and noticed Lavi was gently rubbing his head against it.

"Are you awake?" the redhead asked quietly.

"Yeah," Allen responded. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was. But then I woke up because I missed you."

A light laughter escaped Allen's lips. "You're a weirdo. Or just a sucker for romantic punch lines!"

He felt Lavi's body shake from laughter. "But I like it. It's what I do best. Besides fucking things up I guess."

"I guess so" Allen giggled, then sobered down. "Lavi?"

"Mm hmm?"

He turned around and explored the other's face in the darkness. "I'm fully aware that you were at fault too, but... I feel sorry for not understanding how broken you are."

"It's okay" Lavi's voice confirmed, "I didn't let people close enough that they could see it. I didn't want anyone to see how foul and disgustingly messy I was."

"Well.. I'm pretty close right now" Allen whispered. He took Lavi's face between his hands and gave him a soft smile. "And looking closer, you don't seem foul or disgusting at all. You look just fine. Just like yourself. And I would gladly explore all the other things about you."

In the darkness, Allen could see Lavi's face turn red.

"I love you" he laughed. It sounded like he was on the edge of tears. "I love how you make me feel easy and comfortable. I love how you always try to see best in people like me. I love you."

"Lavi?"

"Mmh?"

"I think I might be hopelessly in love with you."

Lavi lifted his arms around Allen, embracing him softly.

Softer than anything else in the universe.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fanfic, moved from my fanfiction account. I'll be posting here from now on so I figured it'd be pest to have all my previous works on here too.


End file.
